Alzheimer's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Alzheimer's Disease, including details on diagnosis, memory loss, heredity, treatment, medication.

Practical utility of urinary assay in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: AlzheimAlert.

Goodman IJ

Department of Neurology, University of Florida School of Medicine, FL, USA. ijgmd@aol.com

Urinary assay (Alzheimer's disease reaction titer [ADRT]) adds significant information in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), particularly for the nonspecialist. Clinical studies of ADRT in series of AD and non-AD patients have found sensitivity of 89-92.3%, specificity of 90-96.8%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 94.8-97.4% and negative predictive value (NPV) of 78.9-91.8%. The added information from the improvements of PPV and NPV are particularly helpful for the nonspecialist in the community. As a laboratory assay that requires a first-morning noncontaminated sample, ADRT is noninvasive, convenient and safe. ADRT is based on reagents derived from human AD brain cDNA. The pathophysiological roles of these genetic fragments and reagents are still under investigation. ADRT should have a positive impact on primary-care AD clinical practice.

Published 19 December 2007 in Expert Rev Mol Diagn, 8(1): 21-8.
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