In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, misfolded proteins in motor neurons cause progressive muscle weakness and paralysis. People with ALS often die within 2 to 4 years after symptoms start. Many doctors struggle to confirm the diagnosis before symptoms get severe. There’s a critical need for a test that could detect early signs. Such a test would allow earlier treatments and speedier enrollment in clinical trials for testing new medicines.
To diagnose ALS, doctors now rely on clinical symptoms and neurological tests. A new study led by Dr. Bryan J. Traynor at NIH’s National Institute on Aging and Dr. Sonja W. Scholz of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke shows that detectable signs of the disease can be found in blood samples. This suggests that a protein-based blood test could diagnose the disease long before symptoms appear.