An era in which an Alzheimer’s (阿尔兹海默) diagnosis can begin in a doctor’s office is now arriving. Advances in technologies to detect early signs of disease from a blood sample are helping doctors to identify the memory-robbing disorder more accurately and to screen participants more quickly for trials of potential treatments for the more than five million people in the U.S. afflicted with Alzheimer’s. Estimates predict that, by 2030, there will be 76 million people worldwide who will receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or other dementias.
Last fall, a blood test developed by C2N Diagnostics in St Louis, Mo., became available to most of the U.S. as a routine lab test—regulated under the CMS Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) program. It has also received a CE mark as a diagnostic medical device in the European Union—indicating it has met safety, health and environmental protection standards for the region.
“The development of a blood-based test for Alzheimer’s disease is just phenomenal,” says Michelle Mielke, a neuroscientist and epidemiologist at the Mayo Clinic. “The field has been thinking about this for a very long time. It’s really been in the last couple of years that the possibility has come to fruition.”
The C2N test, called PrecivityAD, uses an analytic technique known as mass spectrometry (质谱分析技术) to detect specific types of beta-amyloid (β-淀粉样蛋白), a protein fragment that is a pathological (病态的) hallmark of disease. Beta-amyloid proteins accumulate and form plaques (斑块) visible on brain scans two decades before a patient notices memory problems. As plaques build up in the brain, levels of beta-amyloid decline in the surrounding fluid.
Such changes can be measured in spinal (脊髓的) fluid samples—and now in blood, where beta-amyloid concentrations are significantly lower. PrecivityAD is the first blood test for Alzheimer’s to be cleared for widespread use and one of a new generation of such assays that could enable early detection of the leading neurodegenerative disease—perhaps decades before the onset of the first symptoms.
【小题1】According to the blood test developed by C2N Diagnostics, we can know that ________.| A．it can be applied in a few areas in the United States |
| B．it was carried out under the supervision of under the CMS’s program |
| C．it obtained the CE mark issued by the United States for diagnostic medical equipment |
| D．it has reached the safety, health and environmental protection standards of the world |
| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. | C．Cautious. | D．Wait-and-see. |
| A．samples | B．experiments | C．changes | D．symptoms |
| A．by 2030, more people around the world will suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia |
| B．as plaques accumulate in the brain, the level of beta-amyloid protein in the surrounding fluid will rise |
| C．Alzheimer’s patients are expected to be diagnosed decades before the initial symptoms appear |
| D．many blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease are under development now |
