Tissue biomarker for the detection of dementia with Levi bodies

Abstract

Scientists from the Banner Sun Health research institute (Sun City, Arizona, USA) studied 228 histological preparations obtained by postmortem examination, including samples with diseases of Levi bodies: 46 with Parkinson's disease, 28 with dementia with Levi bodies, 9 with concomitant disease of Levi bodies, 33 with Alzheimer's disease with Levi bodies and two with progressive supranuclear palsy with Levi bodies. The drugs of the control group, defined as people without synucleopathy associated with Levy's disease of the body affecting the central nervous system, included 79 samples from healthy elderly people, 15 from people with Alzheimer's disease, 12 from people with progressive supranuclear palsy, 2 from individuals with corticobasal degeneration and 2 from individuals with multiple systemic atrophy. Tissue sections of the submandibular gland of exposed people were stained with an immunohistochemical method to detect serine phosphorylated α-synuclein 129. Researchers found a submandibular alpha-synuclein pathology in 42/47 (89%) of exposed patients with Parkinson's disease and in 20/28 (71% ) opened patients with dementia with Levy bodies, but not one of 110 representatives of the control group. The authors concluded that the findings could help with further clinical studies of a diagnostic biopsy of the submandibular gland in vivo to detect Parkinson's disease and dementia with Levi bodies. Accurate diagnosis using a peripheral biopsy will help select patients for clinical trials and can be used to check other biomarkers.Low diagnostic accuracy made it difficult to conduct effective clinical trials involving living people in the search for new drugs. With better diagnostic accuracy, clinical trials would have a higher chance of success and could be completed faster and have lower cost. In the next step, biopsy of the submandibular gland will be necessary for living people with dementia with Levi bodies to confirm the autopsy results.