Alzheimer’s Association Releases First Clinical Guidelines for Blood-Based Biomarkers: Implications for Diagnosis and Practice

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• Blood-based biomarkers (BBMs) are now formally included in diagnostic workflows for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but should never replace comprehensive clinical evaluation.
• Only BBMs meeting strict sensitivity (≥90%) and specificity (≥75%) criteria are recommended as diagnostic triage tools; higher specificity (≥90%) is required to substitute for CSF or PET confirmation.
• Current guidelines are brand-agnostic, reflecting rapid test evolution and limited head-to-head comparative evidence.
• BBMs promise improved accessibility and prompt diagnosis, but real-world implementation must address pre-analytic, analytic, and interpretive challenges.

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