Technical developments will make the judgment on Alzheimer's disease possible by an easy checking

Recently the NHK News On-line reported the following:

アルツハイマー病 簡単な検査で判定可能な技術開発

2月1日 5時15分

認知症の原因であるアルツハイマー病を、症状が出る前でも簡単な検査で発見できることにつながる技術を、国立長寿医療研究センターと大手精密機器メーカーが共同で開発しました。

認知症の原因の１つであるアルツハイマー病は、症状が出る２０年以上前から脳の中にβアミロイドという物質の一種が蓄積を始めることがわかっていますが、高額な検査などを行わないかぎり、症状が出る前に病気に気付くのは難しいとされています。

こうした中、国立長寿医療研究センターと大手精密機器メーカーの島津製作所は、脳に蓄積すると血液中に含まれるわずかな量のβアミロイドの一種が減ることを発見し、これを応用して簡単にβアミロイドが蓄積しているかわかる技術を開発したとして、記者会見を開きました。

日本とオーストラリアの高齢者およそ２３０人に対して臨床研究を行い、およそ９０％の確率で、βアミロイドが蓄積しているか判定することができたということです。

１６年前にノーベル化学賞を受賞し、今回の開発に加わった島津製作所の田中耕一さんは「微量な物質の測定技術を、病気の治療や検査などに応用できるよう今後も努力していきたい」と話しています。

国立長寿医療研究センターの柳澤勝彦所長は「当面は、治療法の開発のための患者を見つけ出すために使い、将来的には検診にも使うことができればと考えている」と話しています。

My translation

The National Institute for Longevity Sciences together with a major precision equipment maker had jointly developed a technology which could lead to an ability to identify Alzheimer's disease, a cause of dementia, by a simple checking even before the symptom came out.

It was known that one cause of dementia was the Alzheimer's disease, it was understood that as a symptom, one type of material in the β amyloid in the brain would begin to accumulate more than 20 years earlier. Unless expensive checkings were done, it was difficult to notice the sickness before the symptom came out.

As such, when it accumulated  in a brain, the National Institute for Longevity Sciences together with Shimadzu Incorporation, a major precision equipment maker found that a rare kind of β amyloid that had only a small amount in the blood would decrease. Applying this, the technology which could easily know whether β amyloid was accumulating could be developed, and a press conference was held.

A clinical study was performed on approximately 230 senior citizens in Australian and Japan, and it's said that it was possible to judge whether β amyloid was accumulating with an approximately 90 % probability.

Mr. Koichi Tanaka of Shimadzu who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 16 years ago joined this development and said that “from now on I'd like to make an effort on the application of the small amount measuring technique so as to check and treat the sickness."

Yanagisawa Katsuhiko the general manager of the National Institute for Longevity Sciences said that "at present it is used to find out patients for the development of a treatment, in future I'm thinking when it can also be used for medical examination.”

     The discovery is good news for all Alzheimer’s disease patients.