Labguard to Include Urine Test for Alzheimer's

An on-site urine test for illicit substances will now include an early test for Alzheimer's disease (AD).

The Labguard Accucheck of Southwestern Medical Solutions, Inc. (Tampa, FL, USA) is used for the on-site testing of employees, job applicants, military personnel, public service workers, students, and athletes to detect the use of illicit substances. Now, the company intends to include a test that analyzes a first urine sample for levels of a brain protein called neural thread protein (NTP).

By helping to identify Alzheimer's disease early, the company hopes that patients will receive available therapies when they can be most effective, possibly before irreversible damage occurs. The AD test will probably be most useful as a confirmatory test, used in conjunction with other relevant medical data and docors' clinical assessments of patient symptoms.

Until the development of the urine test, the detection and diagnosis of probable AD was both invasive and expensive, often involving a spinal tap to collect cerebrospinal fluid for analysis of beta amyloid precursor and Tau proteins. Still, a definitive diagnosis is virtually impossible, say doctors at Southwestern.




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