A study involving over 1,700 participants from five hospitals across Barcelona, Sweden, and Italy has confirmed the effectiveness of a blood-based biomarker for detecting Alzheimer’s disease in clinical practice.
The detection of Alzheimer’s disease through a simple blood test is now a scientific reality. A recent study led by researchers from the Hospital del Mar Research Institute and the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), part of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, has confirmed that a blood-based biomarker, phospho-tau217, can accurately indicate the risk of Alzheimer’s in individuals showing symptoms of cognitive impairment.
The study, published in Nature Medicine, was conducted in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg and Lund University in Sweden, as well as the University and Hospital of Brescia in Italy.
Researchers analyzed data from 1,767 individuals across five cohorts: four hospital-based groups from Hospital del Mar, Gothenburg Hospital, Malmö Hospital, and Brescia Hospital, and one primary care group in Sweden. Building on earlier research, the team validated the effectiveness of phospho-tau217 as a blood biomarker for identifying Alzheimer’s risk, even in the early, preclinical stages of the disease.
Now, they have validated an automated and scalable blood test system, Lumipulse p-tau217, developed by the Japanese company Fujirebio, to determine the threshold levels above or below which it can be confirmed whether a person will develop the disease or is free of risk.
Early Detection with High Accuracy
“This development may allow us to determine who needs to undergo further tests, such as a lumbar puncture or a PET scan, and who doesn’t, as it enables the detection of Alzheimer’s in its early stages with great accuracy,” explains Dr. Marc Suárez-Calvet, a neurologist at Hospital del Mar and researcher at its research institute and the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center.
“We have been able to establish two cut-off points that help us determine this risk. People whose p-tau217 biomarker levels fall between these two thresholds are the ones who need further testing,” he adds.
Despite the test’s high level of precision, Dr. Suárez-Calvet stresses that “it is important to highlight that biomarker results must always be interpreted by a neurologist or other specialized healthcare professional after a proper neurological assessment, and never in isolation.”
More than 90% accuracy
The study showed that, in hospital patients, the automated blood biomarker analysis achieves an accuracy of over 90%, comparable to that of a lumbar puncture. In reaching this conclusion, researchers considered patient comorbidities (such as diabetes and kidney function) as well as age. However, effectiveness is lower in primary care patients and in those over 80 years old.
“Our results, combined with the ease of use and implementation of this type of test, could facilitate its integration into clinical practice to achieve a more accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s,” notes Dr. Federica Anastasi, BBRC researcher and co-author of the study. The detection of phospho-tau217 levels in blood is simple and can be performed in any clinical laboratory. This could help, according to Dr. Pablo Villoslada, head of the Neurology Department at Hospital del Mar, “provide a tool for accurate and early diagnosis, ensuring equitable access to care and improved treatments.”
The study shows that this new diagnostic tool can significantly reduce the costs associated with diagnosing Alzheimer’s, with savings ranging from 60% to 81% compared to current diagnostic tests. This economic impact, combined with its large-scale applicability, could help improve access to early diagnosis and enhance the clinical management of the disease. However, the authors caution that further studies will be needed before it can be implemented in clinical practice.
Reference: “Plasma phospho-tau217 for Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis in primary and secondary care using a fully automated platform” by Sebastian Palmqvist, Noëlle Warmenhoven, Federica Anastasi, Andrea Pilotto, Shorena Janelidze, Pontus Tideman, Erik Stomrud, Niklas Mattsson-Carlgren, Ruben Smith, Rik Ossenkoppele, Kübra Tan, Anna Dittrich, Ingmar Skoog, Henrik Zetterberg, Virginia Quaresima, Chiara Tolassi, Kina Höglund, Duilio Brugnoni, Albert Puig-Pijoan, Aida Fernández-Lebrero, José Contador, Alessandro Padovani, Mark Monane, Philip B. Verghese, Joel B. Braunstein, Silke Kern, Kaj Blennow, Nicholas J. Ashton, Marc Suárez-Calvet and Oskar Hansson, 9 April 2025, Nature Medicine.
DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-03622-w
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1 Comment
I am a medical anthropologist researcher and author. There is a major problem with this study. It assumes that tau protein is a marker for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), when recent studies suggest that these proteins can actually be protective and not signs of disease. In fact, according to this study, “The lower accuracy in the older individuals could potentially be explained by the lower p-tau217 concentration observed in the older participants with AD pathology, in combination with a higher p-tau217 concentration in older participants without AD pathology.” In other words, older people with Alzheimer’s have lower tau protein than younger people with Alzheimer’s, and some older people without Alzheimer’s have higher tau protein. So tau protein is not necessarily associated with Alzheimer’s.
Of course, the purpose of this study was to show a fast way to test for tau protein in the blood to give a AD diagnosis. However, there is no good treatment of AD at this time, so why the rush for a test? Oh, money. People are worried about dementia and AD, and testing for it could bring in lots of cash, even if the test is of a blood marker that may have nothing to do with AD in older people.
If you want to prevent dementia and AD, you should know that brain circulation is affected by sleep position. Research shows that head-of-bed elevation of 30 degrees is optimal for brain and heart circulation. If you use a wedge to elevate your torso when sleeping to deal with GERD or gastric reflux, that is the kind of elevation you need for your brain, too. I have studied and written about this, and it also prevent other diseases caused by sleeping too flat and congesting the brain as a result. See my article, Heads Up! How the Way You Are Sleeping Can Be Killing You! https://www.academia.edu/1483361/Heads_Up_The_Way_You_Are_Sleeping_May_Be_Killing_You_