By Andrew Silver<\/p>\n
SHANGHAI, Jan 14 (Reuters) – BGI Genomics and Roche Diagnostics have rolled out tests for Alzheimer’s disease in China, the companies \u200bsaid, in an effort to expand access to easier-to-use diagnosis \u200cand monitoring choices for patients with the brain-wasting condition.<\/p>\n
In a statement, BGI Genomics said \u200cdoctors are using a blood test it developed as an auxiliary tool in Guangzhou, Qingdao, Shenzhen and Wuhan to evaluate the disease’s progression and the risk of onset.<\/p>\n
Switzerland’s Roche also said in a statement that \u2060its team in China \u200cwas working with a local regulatory authority to make its own test measuring pTau181, a key protein associated with \u200dAlzheimer’s disease, available to patients in Boao, Hainan province.<\/p>\n
The Roche test was put into clinical use at a hospital in Boao, the official Hainan Daily reported \u200bon Monday. Roche did not respond to questions related to the \u200creport.<\/p>\n
Blood tests could speed up diagnosis of the disease and make it easier to access treatments such as Biogen and Eisai’s Leqembi and Eli Lilly’s Kisunla, since traditional tests are often costly or uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
Other options to detect Alzheimer’s include a spinal tap, which requires an \u2060invasive puncture to collect spinal fluid, or \u200ban expensive PET brain scan.<\/p>\n
BGI Genomics said \u200bits test cannot be used as standalone evidence for an Alzheimer’s diagnosis and treatment, citing a possibility of a \u200dsmall number of \u2060failures, but doctors said it was helpful for early screening.<\/p>\n
Roche said a negative test for pTau181 with its product meant “most people \u2060can avoid further unnecessary investigations for Alzheimer\u2019s using CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) or PET and \u200ccan be put on the appropriate pathway for their condition.”<\/p>\n
(Editing \u200cby Miyoung Kim and Thomas Derpinghaus)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Andrew Silver SHANGHAI, Jan 14 (Reuters) – BGI Genomics and Roche Diagnostics have rolled out tests for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[13067,13066,13065,13068,13069,351,134,2057],"class_list":["post-19984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-alzheimer39s-diagnosis","tag-alzheimer39s-disease","tag-bgi-genomics","tag-blood-tests","tag-boao","tag-china","tag-roche","tag-roche-diagnostics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}