Road to implementation: patient and healthcare professional’s perception of the blood test

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundAlzheimer’s disease blood‐based biomarkers show robust performance for discrimination of amyloid pathology and for monitoring disease progression, both on analytical and clinical level. Now it’s time to prepare for clinical implementation, beyond selected cohorts and in more diverse settings. We therefore started the CANTATE study, which aims to address clinical testing in academic and peripheral memory clinics and in primary care. We aim to elucidate differences between these settings, such as different a priori chances of being amyloid positive, and in test performances and requirements, for example exclusion versus inclusion. In addition, the context of use and perspectives on implementation in primary care are not yet known. We therefore aim to investigate and address attitudes and perspectives of patients and health care professionals on the current diagnostic process and blood‐based biomarker testing.MethodsWe surveyed perspectives of 111 people visiting the website of the Dutch Alzheimer’s association, which were mostly caregivers to persons with dementia, regarding blood‐based testing for a timely AD diagnosis.ResultsWhen presented with different scenarios, the majority of participants were interested in blood‐based testing for AD, independent of the severity of symptoms they might experience (71.2% if they would experience mild symptoms versus 64.0% if no symptoms). Trust in a negative outcome of a blood‐based test for AD, however, was influenced by symptom severity (78.4% would feel reassured if experiencing mild symptoms versus 48.6% upon severe symptoms). The availability of a treatment option increased interest in blood testing to 92.8%.ConclusionsThese results indicate that there is added value from a public perspective for blood‐based biomarker testing for AD.