It has been just reported that a simple Skin test could accurately identify Parkinson’s biomarker. Check out the latest reports about this below.

Skin test could find Parkinson’s biomarker

A new study has discovered a minimally invasive test that can accurately identify an abnormal form of the alpha-synuclein protein, which is the hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, through a simple Skin Biopsy.

The findings, which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, have the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

This condition affects up to a million Americans and is expected to impact 1.2 million people by 2030. Parkinson’s disease is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, after Alzheimer’s.

According to Dr. Christopher Gibbons, a neurologist and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, approximately 200,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, or other related disorders each year.

Traditionally, diagnosing Parkinson’s has been a time-consuming process that involves a thorough review of the patient’s medical history, symptoms, and physical examination.

Unfortunately, there has been no standard lab or imaging test available for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s, forcing doctors to rely on MRI brain scans, dopamine transporter scans, and blood tests.

“Too often patients experience delays in diagnosis or are misdiagnosed due to the complexity of these diseases,” Dr. Gibbons said.

He continued and explained the following:

“With a simple, minimally-invasive skin biopsy test, this blinded multicenter study demonstrated how we can more objectively identify the underlying pathology of synucleinopathies and offer better diagnostic answers and care for patients.”

You can check out the complete details about the matter in the official press release. 

Also, we suggest that you take a look at the findings published in the 2024 study in JAMA. 

The conclusions state the following:

“In this cross-sectional study, a high proportion of individuals meeting clinical consensus criteria for PD, DLB, MSA, and PAF had phosphorylated α-synuclein detected by skin biopsy. Further research is needed in unselected clinical populations to externally validate the findings and fully characterize the potential role of skin biopsy detection of phosphorylated α-synuclein in clinical care.”

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