Clark C M, Davatzikos C, Borthakur A, Newberg A, Leight S, Lee V M-Y, Trojanowski J Q
Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Neurosignals. 2008;16(1):11-8. doi: 10.1159/000109754. Epub 2007 Dec 5.
The increasing prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and the devastating consequences of late-life dementia motivates the drive to develop diagnostic biomarkers to reliably identify the pathology associated with this disorder. Strategies to accomplish this include the detection of altered levels of tau and amyloid in cerebrospinal fluid, the use of structural MRI to identify disease-specific patterns of regional atrophy and MRI T(1)rho to detect disease-related macromolecular protein aggregation, and the direct imaging of amyloid deposits using positron emission tomography and single photon emission computerized tomography. Success will facilitate the ability to reliably diagnose Alzheimer's disease while the symptoms of brain failure are mild and may provide objective measures of disease-modifying treatment efficacy.
阿尔茨海默病患病率的不断上升以及晚年痴呆症带来的毁灭性后果,促使人们努力开发诊断生物标志物,以可靠地识别与这种疾病相关的病理特征。实现这一目标的策略包括检测脑脊液中tau蛋白和淀粉样蛋白水平的变化,利用结构磁共振成像(MRI)识别疾病特异性的区域萎缩模式,以及利用MRI T(1)rho检测与疾病相关的大分子蛋白聚集,还包括使用正电子发射断层扫描和单光子发射计算机断层扫描对淀粉样蛋白沉积进行直接成像。取得成功将有助于在脑功能衰竭症状较轻时可靠地诊断阿尔茨海默病,并且可能为疾病修饰治疗的疗效提供客观指标。