Doctor's may be able to determine if and when someone will develop Alzheimer's disease with a simple blood test, according to a recent study The New York Daily News reported.
Researchers at the Georgetown University Medical Center found that a blood test can predict with more than 90 percent accuracy if a healthy person will get the degenerative brain disease within three years, The New York Daily News reported.
"Our novel blood test offers the potential to identify people at risk for progressive cognitive decline and can change how patients, their families and treating physicians plan for and manage the disorder," Howard J. Federoff, the study's author and professor of neurology and executive vice president for health sciences at Georgetown University Medical Center, said in a statement.
The test identifies 10 lipids, or fats, in the blood that predict disease onset. Researchers said the test could be ready for use in clinical studies in as few as two years and other diagnostic uses are possible.
Though more work needs to be done, researchers hope the test will someday be available in doctors' offices. The only methods for methods for predicting Alzheimer's right now is PET scans and spinal taps, which are expensive, impractical and "often unreliable and sometimes risky, CNN reported.
"This is a potential game-changer," Federoff told CNN. "My level of enthusiasm is very high."
Alzheimer's disease silently attacks the brain for more than a decade before any symptoms emerge, BBC News reported.
The study was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
