
Korean-U.S. Study Unveils Blood Test That Accurately Detects Alzheimer’s (Image supported by ChatGPT)
SEOUL, June 12 (Korea Bizwire) — As South Korea edges into a super-aged society, dementia has become one of the country’s most urgent public health challenges. Now, a joint research team from Korea and the United States has reported a major breakthrough in Alzheimer’s diagnosis—a blood-based test that could dramatically improve early detection and targeted treatment.
In a study published in the latest issue of JAMA Neurology, researchers from Yonsei University’s Gangnam Severance Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Memory and Aging Center revealed that the blood-based biomarker p-tau217 shows exceptionally high accuracy in identifying Alzheimer’s pathology—even in patients with overlapping or atypical dementia symptoms.
Led by Professor Johanna Cho in Seoul and Professor Lawren VandeVrede in San Francisco, the international team studied 349 deceased patients whose brains had been donated to UCSF between 2008 and 2022. The group included individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, frontotemporal dementia, and other neurodegenerative conditions.
Using advanced SIMOA (Single Molecule Array) technology, the team analyzed three biomarkers: p-tau217, NfL (neurofilament light chain), and GFAP (glial fibrillary acidic protein). While the latter two markers showed limited utility in pinpointing Alzheimer’s disease, p-tau217 emerged as a standout performer.
The study found that p-tau217 concentrations in Alzheimer’s patients were significantly higher than in those with frontotemporal dementia, even in cases where both diseases were present. More notably, p-tau217 achieved an AUC (Area Under the Curve) diagnostic accuracy of 0.95, reaching 0.98 in classic Alzheimer’s presentations and maintaining a high 0.89 in mixed cases.
“This is the first study globally to demonstrate that a blood-based p-tau217 test can accurately detect Alzheimer’s pathology across diverse clinical dementia presentations,” said Professor Cho. “It marks a major leap toward more precise diagnoses, better treatment selection, and potentially earlier intervention.”
By contrast, NfL and GFAP yielded AUC scores of just 0.73 and 0.75, respectively, and failed to meaningfully enhance diagnostic accuracy when combined with p-tau217.
The study also revealed that approximately 23% of patients clinically diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia showed co-existing Alzheimer’s pathology, which was associated with poorer performance on memory, executive function, and spatial cognition tests, as well as more severe atrophy in the posterior cortex.
With dementia affecting not only patients but also their families and caregivers, the need for accurate, scalable diagnostics has never been greater. PET scans and cerebrospinal fluid analysis, while useful, remain expensive or invasive. A blood-based test could radically expand access to diagnosis, especially in aging societies like South Korea.
“This finding could be a turning point for both the Korean dementia care system and the global effort to establish blood-based early screening tools,” said Cho. “We now have a scientific foundation for integrating Korea into the world’s top-tier research ecosystem for neurodegenerative diseases.”
As governments and health systems brace for a wave of age-related illnesses, the promise of a simple, reliable blood test for Alzheimer’s could not be more timely—or more necessary.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)