Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center, US, have developed a novel test to identify Alzheimer's disease (AD) from blood samples long before symptoms appear.

The test uses synthetic molecules (peptoids) to successfully seek and identify Alzheimer’s disease-specific antibodies from the patient’s blood sample.

To develop the test, researchers used a combination library of several thousand peptoids in mice models and identified peptoids that capture disease-specific antibodies.

Researcher then examined serum samples from six AD patients, six healthy patients and six patients with Parkinson’s disease and identified three peptoids, which captured six times the IgG antibody levels in Alzheimer’s patients, compared to the other groups.

In a study involving 16 normal control subjects and 10 subjects at the very early state of AD, the three peptoids identified AD with 90% accuracy.

Study author Dwight German said if the disease is detected in its earliest stages – before cognitive impairment begins – it is possible to stop it in its tracks by developing new treatment strategies.

"The results of this study, though preliminary, show great potential for becoming a landmark," German said.