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[00:01.19] The findings suggest the blood tests may be more helpful for general care doctors.

[00:08.36] They see many more cases of people with memory problems than specialists do.

[00:15.27] However, general care doctors have fewer diagnostic tools.

[00:21.38] In the study, patients who visited either a general care doctor or a specialist for memory problems got an early diagnosis using traditional exams.

[00:35.72] They gave blood for testing and got confirmatory spinal taps or brain scans.

[00:43.16] Blood testing is far more accurate, Lund University researchers reported recently at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia.

[00:56.18] They said that the primary care doctors’ first diagnosis was 61 percent accurate and the specialists’ first diagnosis 73 percent.

[01:09.19] However, the blood test was 91 percent accurate, their study showed.

[01:16.36] The Journal of the American Medical Association published the study.

[01:21.94] Dr. John Hsiao of the National Institute on Aging said the new tests measure different biomarkers in different ways.

[01:34.96] Doctors and researchers should only use blood tests proven to have a greater than 90 percent accuracy rate, said Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer Maria Carrillo.

[01:52.49] Carrillo and Hsiao agreed that the blood tests most likely to provide that accuracy measure what is called p-tau217.

[02:05.50] Schindler helped lead an unusual direct comparison of several kinds of blood tests that came to the same finding.

[02:16.93] The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health financed the work.

[02:23.04] That kind of test measures a form of tau that correlates with how much plaque buildup someone has, Schindler explained.

[02:34.19] A high level signals a strong likelihood the person has Alzheimer’s.

[02:41.36] A low level strongly suggests Alzheimer’s is not the cause of a patient’s thinking problems.

[02:49.60] Several companies are developing p-tau217 tests.

[02:55.97] In the United States, only doctors can order the blood tests from labs.

[03:02.88] The Alzheimer’s Association is working on policy suggestions and several companies plan to seek FDA approval, which would clarify correct use.

[03:15.90] For now, Carrillo said doctors should use blood testing only in people with memory problems, after checking the accuracy of the kind they order.

[03:28.91] Especially for primary care physicians, “it really has great potential to help them in sorting out who to give a reassuring message and who to send on to memory specialists,” said Dr. Sebastian Palmqvist of Lund University.

[03:48.03] Palmqvist led the Swedish study with Lund’s Dr. Oskar Hansson.