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The AD7C neural thread protein urine test measures urine concentrations of the protein, which is elevated in patients with Alzheimer's disease. In their study of more than 200 patients with Alzheimer's, Dr. Michael Munzar and colleagues at Nymox Pharmaceutical Corp. of Montreal, Canada, found that the average level of neural thread protein was 2.3 ng/ml compared with levels of less than 1.5 ng/ml for patients with other types of neurological diseases, and 0.83 ng/ml for healthy "control" subjects.

Munzar, medical director of the company, presented his group's findings at the meeting. In an interview with Reuters Health, he said that the test has been accurately picking up Alzheimer's in about 80% of cases and has been correctly negative about 90 percent of the time. The test has been made available commercially, he noted.

Munzar added that "it's not a predictive test ... it's a state marker, a biochemical marker." He said that preliminary evidence indicates a correlation between level of elevation of neural thread protein and severity of Alzheimer's disease, "but we're very cautious about that. People are beginning to do baseline tests in (high-risk subjects) with family histories of Alzheimer's disease. ... In patients with subtle, marginal symptoms, you may get elevations (of AD7C)."

Nymox is in the process of developing a 7C assay, which is a quicker, more advanced test compared with AD7C. "It can be turned into a kit for direct use by physicians, without having to go through our reference laboratory," Munzar explained.