A simple test for Alzheimer’s will be rolled out on the NHS within five years ‘transforming’ diagnosis, experts say.
Trials have found the tests – which look for signs of the disease in the blood – can successfully detect up to 90 per cent of cases.
The NHS will launch a series of pilots from January in what charities say will be a major milestone in tackling the disease.
Doctors are hopeful they will become the gold standard for identifying the biggest killer in the UK, boosting and speeding up detection rates.
At present the only ways to definitively diagnose Alzheimer’s are through expensive brain scans or lumbar punctures, which involve taking a fluid sample from the patient’s spinal cord.

Trials have found the tests – which look for signs of the disease in the blood – can successfully detect up to 90 per cent of cases

The NHS will launch a series of pilots from January in what charities say will be a major milestone in tackling the disease. Pictured: Graphic showing how Alzheimer’s blood tests could work
But a lack of diagnostic capacity and long waiting lists mean only 2 per cent of cases are currently diagnosed this way.
With breakthrough treatments such as donanemab and lecanemab on the horizon, experts said it is vital to have a quick and reliable diagnoses route when drugs could be most effective.
The £5million project is being launched by Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Alzheimer’s Society to gather the real-world evidence needed for a mass rollout.
Dr Susan Kohlhaas, executive director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the world was ‘on the cusp of a new era of dementia treatments’ but these would only be possible with better diagnoses.
Cheap and reliable tests like those looking for biomarkers – telltale signs in the blood such as amyloid and tau – are therefore essential to exploit the ‘chink in the armour’ that has been discovered.
She said: ‘We need better, more scalable tests that are also accurate and compare to current gold standard methods.
‘Low-cost tools like blood tests that are non-invasive and simpler to administer than current gold standard methods are the answer to this.
‘But we need to move these tests out of the lab and assess their effectiveness in real-world settings like the NHS.’ Around 900,000 people live with dementia in the UK, with numbers projected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040.
Yet patients often face waits of between two and four years for a diagnosis, with around one in four dying before any formal diagnosis is made.
A range of tests for Alzheimer’s are currently in the research stages, including those looking for specific proteins that occur before dementia symptoms even appear.
Pharmaceutical giants Roche and Eli Lilly have also announced that they have joined forces to develop a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease.
While some tests are being used in private clinics in Hong Kong and the US, UK charities say more work is needed to ensure tests are measuring the right combination of biomarkers.
Eventually, it is hoped they could be used as part of a national screening programme to detect dementia early, like mammograms for breast cancer, once proven treatments are available.
Dr Fiona Carragher, director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said attitudes have changed with research showing nearly 90 per cent of people would want to know if they had the disease.
She said even without treatments, early diagnosis could help patients and their families to get support in place, while driving down preventable hospital admissions from ‘crises’ such as falls.
She said: ‘Getting an early and accurate diagnosis is the pivotal first step with getting help today and unlocking hope for the future.
‘A diagnosis should unlock access to personalised care and support, allowing people with their loved ones and family around them to live independently in the place they call home for as long as possible.’
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