SEOUL,23 October (BelTA - Yonhap) - A group of South Korean medical scientists have developed a biomarker for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease and referred the technology to a local company, the ICT ministry said Monday.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, the team lead by Moon In-hee of Seoul National University developed the biological marker, which shows that a person is in the very early stages of the disease or is more at risk of developing the disease.
The team developed a kit to analyze blood samples of an accumulated protein called beta-amyloid since its presence in a person's brain can be an early symptom of the disease.
Currently, a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's is time-consuming, relies on expensive tests such as MRIs, and is only detected after a person is in the advanced stages of the disease.
"This technology is different from existing diagnostic methods as we can diagnose Alzheimer's disease from a very early stage when there are no symptoms," said Mook, adding that the test has over 90 percent accuracy.
The technology has been provided to the local medical firm Medifron DBT, officials said.
