(Press-News.org) NEW ORLEANS – Teasing out the exact type or types of dementia someone suffers from is no easy task; neurodegenerative brain diseases share common pathology and often co-occur. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania are continuing efforts to differentiate diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) from frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), as FTLD is often clinically difficult to distinguish from atypical presentations of AD.
In a series of studies being presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Penn researchers demonstrated that, while tests created for AD are effectively diagnosing the condition when it's clear cut, additional tests are needed to address the many cases with mixed pathology.
"With the emergence of disease-modifying treatments for AD and other neurodegenerative diseases, it will be of utmost importance to accurately identify the underlying neuropathology in patients," said senior author John Q. Trojanowski, MD, PhD, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and co-director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at Penn.
In one study, the Penn team compared results of a test looking at levels of tau and amyloid beta (Aβ) in the spinal fluid, using two different types of analytical platforms. They determined that values from the two platforms could effectively be transformed into equivalent units, and these values accurately distinguished AD from FTLD. A cutoff of 0.34 for the t-tau:Aβ1-42 ratio had 90 - 100 percent sensitivity and 91-96.7 percent specificity to differentiate FTLD cases, respectively.
In another study, the team looked at patient cases with more than one underlying neurodegenerative disease and compared the accuracy of the biomarkers using clinical and neuropathological diagnosis. They determined that cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) Aβ and tau assays provided a valid diagnosis of AD but, in mixed pathology cases where Alzheimer's was present along with other diseases (confirmed by autopsy), the testing strategies classified the diagnosis as AD alone.
"We need to develop better CSF diagnostic panels for the early diagnosis of neurodegenerative dementias, including those due to mixed neurodegenerative disease pathologies that commonly co-occur with Alzheimer's," said senior author Murray Grossman, MD, professor of Neurology and director of the Penn FTLD Center.
The two posters will be presented during the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting:
Monday, April 23, 2012 10:00 AM
[IN3-1.010] Improving Diagnostic Accuracy for Dementia: CSF Biomarker Cutoffs Based on Clinical and Neuropathological Criteria
Jon B. Toledo, Philadelphia, PA, Johannes Brettschneider, Ulm, PA, Murray Grossman, Steven Arnold, Philadelphia, PA, William Hu, Atlanta, GA, Sharon X. Xie, Virginia M. Y. Lee, Leslie Shaw, John Trojanowski, Philadelphia, PA
Tuesday, April 24, 2012 7:30 AM
[P02.055] Comparison of Cerebrospinal Fluid Levels of Tau and Aβ1-42 in Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal Degeneration Using Two Analytical Platforms
David Irwin, Corey T. McMillan, Jon B. Toledo, Steven Arnold, Leslie Shaw, Li-San Wang, Virginia Lee, John Trojanowski, Murray Grossman, Philadelphia, PA
INFORMATION:
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $479.3 million awarded in the 2011 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top 10 hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital – the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2011, Penn Medicine provided $854 million to benefit our community.
END
The recent mild winter throughout much of the United States was a cause for celebration for many. However, butterfly aficionados shouldn't be joining in the celebration.
A new study by Jessica Hellmann, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, and researchers from Western University found that mild winters, such as the one many of us just experienced, can be taxing for some butterfly or possibly other species.
Hellmann and her fellow researchers studied caterpillars of the Propertius Duskywing butterfly, which feed on Gary Oak trees. ...
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These findings, being presented at the American Heart Association's Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB) 2012 Scientific Sessions in Chicago April 20, 2012, may help in identifying the molecular culprit, with the goal of creating targeted therapies for atherosclerosis before the disease forms.
Coronary ...
Athens, Ga. – On the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, a national panel of researchers including University of Georgia marine scientist Samantha Joye is urging the federal government to reassess how it would respond to similar oil spills that might occur in the future.
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Radisson Blu Hotel, Toulouse is proud to introduce fiber to the home (FTTH), a 100 megabyte per second high-speed Internet access.
The 100 megabyte per second high-speed Internet will provide guests of the airport hotel Toulouse with free access to the Internet in and around the hotel, making it possible to work in comfort and send attachments and large files in a few seconds. Users can download and share content at light speed while watching a High Definition video or even playing network games.
Customer needs are always changing and the Internet has become indispensable ...
NASA satellites have been monitoring the slow-to-develop low pressure area called System 99P for four days as it lingers in the Arafura Sea, north Australia's Northern Territory. Satellite data indicates that System 99P is likely to continue struggling because of weak organization and nearby dry air.
System 99P was captured in an infrared image on April 20, 2012 at 04:55 UTC (12:55 a.m. EDT) by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies onboard NASA's Aqua satellite. At that time, System 99P was centered about 190 nautical miles (218.6 ...
NJIT's Center for Wireless Communications and Signal Processing Research showcased earlier this week the research of six doctoral students. The students' work was featured in presentations and displayed posters. The annual event gives doctoral students and their professors a chance to exchange information from a year's worth of work. The Center is located in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT's Newark College of Engineering.
Six presentations focused on the field's newest technology. They were "Spatial Compressive Sensing in MIMO Radar ...
Park Inn by Radisson Al Khobar was recently named as Highly Commended 'Best 4 Star Hotel in Saudi Arabia' at the second Saudi Excellence in Tourism Awards gala ceremony. The awards are held under the patronage of HRH Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz, the president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.
Nearly one hundred thousand votes were cast in the 2012 Saudi Excellence in Tourism Awards before voting closed on Thursday 14 March. Across the 22 sub-categories there were more than 600 nominations with the most hotly contested category being Best ...
NEW ORLEANS – Two new studies analyzing treatment decisions in late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients shed light onto treatments aimed to extend the duration and quality of life in this progressively debilitating neuromuscular disorder. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that waiting until the last minute to receive one treatment resulted in not living long enough to experience the benefits. In a separate study, Penn researchers uncovered polarized preferences among patients regarding the value of an ...
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — On the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform blowout, a national panel of researchers is providing new insight into what happened in the disaster, as well as a guide for how to deal with such events in the future, and why existing tools were inadequate to predict what lay before them.
The study, produced by the Gulf Oil Spill Ecotox Working Group at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), is published in the May issue of the journal Bioscience. It is titled, "A Tale of Two Spills: ...
