Blood biomarkers are taking off in the Alzheimer’s disease field, showing promise for diagnosis, prognostication, and treatment monitoring. Current diagnostic methods, such as cerebrospinal fluid analysis and amyloid PET scans, are expensive, invasive, and not widely available. Therefore, the development of a blood test which detects amyloid beta (Aβ), phosphorylated tau (p-tau), or other putative objective markers could be the way forward.

Following development, rigorous validation, and retrospective and prospective analyses, several assays are now ready for real-world study and clinical implementation. Many investigations are ongoing to try to determine the optimal combinations of biomarkers, cut-offs for accurate discrimination, and where in the disease spectrum each marker performs best. In today’s podcast, our experts discuss the road to clinical implementation of plasma biomarkers, including the latest data on Aβ, p-tau, and GFAP, development of standard operating procedures and guidelines, and real-world evidence.