Clinical Test Panel Aids Diagnosis of Treatable Dementia

A clinical laboratory offers, as a commercial service, a panel of several tests for identifying secondary, treatable causes of dementia as a single blood test and report.

The new panel of tests, which was launched by Quest Diagnostics (Madison, NJ, USA), will distinguish between patients suffering from potentially reversible causes of dementia, such as vitamin B12 deficiency, hypothyroidism, anemia, and diabetes, and other forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Dementia is characterized by the presence of cognitive dysfunctions, such as memory loss and impaired judgment. The new panel of tests to determine the underlying cause(s) of the dementia was modeled after the recommendations of the American Academy of Neurology, the American Geriatrics Association, a US National Institutes of Health Consensus Panel and the European Federation of Neurological Societies.

The test panel was unveiled during the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in San Diego, CA, USA, March 16-23, 2013. At the conference, Athena Diagnostics (Worcester, MA, USA) also introduced several new clinical lab-developed tests for a range of rare neurological disorders, including hereditary neuropathy and neuromuscular disease.

Athena Diagnostics, acquired by Quest Diagnostics in 2011 (but continuing to operate largely as an independent business and brand), is a leader in dementia diagnostics primarily for neurologists, with a menu that includes eleven testing services, including a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker analysis, to aid the detection of frontotemporal dementia and other forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia experts at Athena Diagnostics helped to define the new panel’s tests and report requirements, while Quest Diagnostics’ experts developed and introduced the comprehensive offering at clinical laboratories where the individual tests are performed.

“The evaluation of suspected dementia is a significant medical challenge because many different conditions, from low TSH levels to diabetes, can cause cognitive impairment,” said Joseph J. Higgins, MD, FAAN, medical director for Quest Diagnostics Neurology and Athena Diagnostics. “Our new test panel provides a standard laboratory evaluation to rule out confounders of memory or reversible causes of memory loss. Test results are useful in excluding comorbidities and revealing potential risk factors, origin of confusional states and, sometimes, in identifying the primary cause of dementia.”