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[00:00.39] New blood tests could help to identify, or diagnose, Alzheimer’s disease faster and with more accuracy, researchers reported recently.

[00:14.20] However, some of the tests for the brain-wasting disease appear to work better than others.

[00:23.23] Doctors can confirm Alzheimer’s in a patient if they find one of the disease’s main signs: the development, or buildup, of a sticky protein called beta-amyloid.

[00:39.43] Currently, doctors use brain imaging or a special test known as a spinal tap to look for beta-amyloid buildup.

[00:50.33] Brain imaging is hard to get and spinal taps are painful.

[00:56.70] Instead, many patients are diagnosed based on their behavior and cognitive exams.

[01:05.47] Now, labs have begun offering blood tests that can show some signs of Alzheimer’s.

[01:13.70] Scientists are excited about the possibilities that the tests offer.

[01:20.08] But the tests are not widely used yet because there is little data to guide doctors about which kind to order and when.

[01:32.03] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not officially approved any of them, and few patients have insurance coverage for such tests.

[01:47.44] “What tests can we trust?” asked Dr. Suzanne Schindler of Washington University in St. Louis. Schindler is part of a research project examining the tests.

[02:02.04] While some tests are very accurate, Schindler said, “other tests are not much better than a flip of a coin.”

[02:12.67] More than 6 million people in the United States and millions more around the world have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia.

[02:23.83] Its usual signs, or “biomarkers,” are amyloid plaques and abnormal tau protein that leads to tangles that damage neurons.

[02:37.37] New drugs such as Leqembi and Kisunla can slow the disease a little. The medicines remove amyloid from the brain.

[02:48.79] But these drugs only work in the early part, or stage, of Alzheimer’s progression.

[02:56.50] Few patients get the costly brain scans and invasive spinal taps that could show early stage Alzheimer’s.

[03:05.26] Even specialists struggle to tell if Alzheimer’s or something else is to blame for a patient’s problems.

[03:15.09] Schindler said she sometimes has patients “who I am convinced have Alzheimer’s disease and I do testing and it’s negative.”

[03:25.45] A limited number of doctors have carried out blood tests for Alzheimer’s in carefully controlled research settings.

[03:34.75] However, a new study of about 1,200 patients in Sweden shows they also can work in doctors’ offices.