Our newest research-advisor Prof. Randall J. Bateman, MD.
AD Blood Test in UK
Pat & Dennis Bender Early Dementia Diagnosis & Prognosis Fund
J. Dennis Bender
Office, Home & Cell Phone: 859-391-5226
5726 La Jolla Blvd. – Suite 311
La Jolla, CA 92037-7345
&
Office - 100 Riverside Pl. - Suite 303
Covington, KY 41011-5711
We support the development of improved diagnostic methods for the early detection and diagnosis of MCI, Alzheimer’s, vascular and other dementias, their likely prognosis, and best treatment options. We focus on the development of Bayesian-based medical-decision-support systems, comparative-effectiveness research, and the better utilization of these for the above. (After incorporating in KY as a 501(c)(3) in 2002, we dissolved that entity for a simplified form of two entirely self-financed, private philanthropies utilizing a Vanguard Charitable Trust for making $100K annual-research-grants for early-dementia-detection and its correct differential-diagnosis and likely-prognosis. They will continue on, after I am long gone, either mentally or physically. Prof. Randall Bateman is the first of our fund’s research advisors, KMK Law is our legal advisor and David J. Bender is my Estate Rep. (See: https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/research_progress/earlier-diagnosis)
www.JDBender.com – EMS/eVTOL & Educational Experimental Aviation Fund (Vanguard Charitable Trust)
www.JDBender.org – Dementia Diagnosis Fund (Vanguard Charitable Trust)
November 27, 2023
“Getting an early and accurate diagnosis is the pivotal-first-step to getting help today and unlocking hope for the future. Blood-biomarkers provide a real opportunity to disrupt the diagnostic-paradigm . . Many people face a very-long-wait of up to 2-4 years to get a dementia-diagnosis, and many cases remain undiagnosed. . . Leading UK Alzheimer's organizations have launched an ambitious plan to have a diagnostic-Alzheimer's-disease (AD) blood-test widely-available within the next-5-years.”
Alzheimer's Research UK, the Alzheimer's Society, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) are collaborating with each other and leading AD researchers to bring a diagnostic-blood-test to the UK's National Health Service (NHS). This is the exact same motivation for my having previously invested $15.5M in endowing my own dementia-diagnosis research fund.
At least the U.K. is rapidly moving forward to fix this ongoing problem of obtaining an early and proper diagnosis for dementia and estimation of its likely prognosis. The U.S. has exactly the same problems as the U.K. and needs to do the same! There is no good reason for this to take any more time. It can be done today in the U.S. with the currently available, already FDA-approved, blood-test from C2N that I have been collaborating with them on developing for the past decade now.
Alzheimer's Blood Test Coming Within 5-Years, UK Pledges
Megan Brooks - November 27, 2023
Leading UK Alzheimer's organizations have launched an ambitious plan to have a diagnostic Alzheimer's-disease (AD) blood-test widely available within the next 5 years.
Alzheimer's Research UK, the Alzheimer's Society, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) are collaborating with each other and leading AD researchers to bring a diagnostic-blood-test to the UK's National Health Service (NHS).
"Dementia affects around 900,000 people in the UK today, and that number is expected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040. It is the UK's biggest killer," Fiona Carragher, with the Alzheimer's Society, said during a media briefing announcing the project.
Yet, many people face a very-long-wait of up to 2-4 years to get a dementia-diagnosis, and many cases remain undiagnosed, she noted.
A chief reason is lack of access to specialized diagnostic-testing. Currently, only 2% of people in the UK have access to advanced-diagnostic-tests like PET-scans and lumbar-punctures owing to limited-availability in the UK. [While generally available in the U.S., one is usually forced to join an ongoing dementia study just to get a PET-scan of the type that I helped to fund the development of and then also served as an FDA test-subject volunteer for its approval a decade ago. ]
"Getting an early and accurate diagnosis is the pivotal first step to getting help today and unlocking hope for the future" and blood-biomarkers provide a "real opportunity to disrupt the diagnostic-paradigm," Carragher said. It also offers greater opportunities to participate in research and clinical-trials, she added.
Attitude Shift Susan Kohlhaas, PhD, with Alzheimer's Research UK, noted that attitudes toward dementia diagnosis have changed in the past few years. The days when people may have not wanted to know if they have dementia are gone.
Data from the latest wave of the Alzheimer's Research UK Dementia Attitudes Monitor survey show that 9-in-10-people would seek a diagnosis from their provider. "That's been driven by awareness of treatments and things that people can proactively do to try and slow disease progression," Kohlhaas said.
"As new treatments for dementia become available there will be a surge in people seeking a diagnosis. At the moment, we don't have adequate infrastructure to cope with that demand," Kohlhaas added.
She noted that blood-tests are starting to show their potential as an effective part of the diagnosis and are widely-used in research.
"In some cases, they are similar in sensitivity to gold-standard PET-scans and lumbar-punctures, and they're less-expensive and potentially more-scalable on the NHS. What we need to do over the next several years is to understand-how-they-fit-into-the-clinical-pathway," Kohlhaas said.
The project will involve working with leading dementia-researchers to pilot the implementation-of-potential-blood-tests in the NHS that can give an early-and-accurate-diagnose-of-dementia.
The project, which kicks-off in January 2024, will receive £5-million ($6.13-million) awarded by the UK Postcode Dream Fund. Specific details regarding the leadership team, participating centers, and specific blood biomarker tests to be trialed will be announced then.
Carragher and Kohlhaas report no relevant financial conflicts of interest.
[Keywords and compound-keywords (tags) are highlighted-and-hyphenated in italic-and-bold; place-names, organizations and titles are in bold; media-names put in italic. Instead of underlining, I’ve been hyphenating entire phrases – called long-tail-keywords. This odd style was being tried to enhance ease-of-spotting items-of-interest in my specific website-achieved documents. Now generative-AI and similar have eliminate this time-consuming distraction.]
{AD Blood Test in UK}
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