A blood biomarker may be able to identify vascular dementia in its early stages, claims a recent study.
The most prevalent and widely recognised form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. About 70% of dementia cases are caused by it.
Lewy body dementia and vascular dementia are two additional types. And it can be challenging for doctors to distinguish between the various forms of dementia.
Cerebral small vessel disease is a significant contributor to dementia and cognitive decline in older individuals. Reliable Source. As a result, the blood-brain barrier becomes more permeable and blood flow to important parts of the brain is decreased. Reliable Sour
Particularly in the early stages, the symptoms of this vascular dementia can frequently be mistaken for those of other types of dementia, like Alzheimer’s disease. Early diagnosis is also challenging, requiring MRI or CT scans to spot important modifications like white matter hyperintensities, microbleeds, and brain atrophy. High levels of placental growth factor (PlGF) in the blood can now be used to detect the vascular damage causing this particular type of dementia, according to a study from the University of California, Los Angeles.
The MarkVCID Consortium, which was founded in 2016 and seeks to comprehend precisely how vascular brain injury contributes to dementia, funded the study.
The results were released in the Alzheimer’s Association journal, Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Reliable Source. The second most typical form of dementia is vascular dementia. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 5–10% of dementia cases are caused solely by vascular dementia. Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer’s disease coexist with it quite frequently, though. Dr. Bin Xu, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at North Carolina Central University who was not involved in the study and works for the Bio manufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE), welcomed the findings. “This new finding of placental growth factor-based biomarker has important diagnostic and prognostic significance for vascular cognitive impairment,” he continued. Cognitive decline in vascular dementia is brought on by reduced blood flow to certain parts of the brain. This can be a result of a sudden change, such as a strokeTrusted Source, or by the more gradual changes of cerebral small vessel disease.
