Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer's disease, the main cause of dementia

Alzheimer's disease is a chronic neurodegenerative brain disease. The disease causes memory problems and over time leads to abnormalities in various functions such as language and judgment. Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia. 70% of dementia patients are suffering from Alzheimer’s dementia, caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

Imaging or autopsies of brains from patients with Alzheimer's disease reveal significant shrinking compared to ordinary people. Biopsies show neurofibrillary tangles generated by abnormal entanglement of senile plaques and tau proteins caused by the deposition of amyloid beta proteins.

Alzheimer’s dementia, importance of early diagnosis

Early and appropriate management of Alzheimer’s dementia is important to delay the onset of dementia. The exact cause of Alzheimer's disease remains unknown, and a cure currently does not exist. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitor or NMDA receptor antagonists are used to treat Alzheimer's disease, however, these only slow the progression of the disease. Therefore, the effect is very limited because drug treatment does not cure the disease.

Prevention through early diagnosis and prediction of Alzheimer's disease is the only way to deal with Alzheimer’s dementia effectively. If the incidence of dementia is delayed by five years, the prevalence of dementia after 20 years is lowered to 60%, there is economic benefit of more than $10,000 USD per patient, and the total economic profit can be expected to be more than $2 billion USD.

High social burden due to rapid increase in dementia population

3 seconds

Frequencies of new cases
of dementia

50 million

Dementia patients WW
3x by 2050

$900 billion

Economic Burden

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 50 million people with dementia in the world. The dementia population is rapidly increasing, and it is expected to triple to about 150 million by 2050. The number of domestic dementia patients is expected to increase from 750,000 in 2018 to 1 million in 2024, 2 million in 2039 and 3 million in 2050. In addition, patients with dementia require continuous care and support, which is accompanied by socioeconomic which are estimated to be greater than $900 billion.

Limitations of existing Alzheimer's disease diagnosis

Current diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is based on amyloid PET imaging or cerebrospinal fluid(CSF) tests that measure intracerebral amyloid beta. However, amyloid PET is limited in its widespread use due to problems such as expensive test costs, lack of medical facilities with PET equipment, and the risk of radiation exposure during repeated injections. Diagnosis using cerebrospinal fluid is an invasive method, that can lead to complications, including infection, and is often declined by patients. To overcome this limitation, QuantaMatrix has developed a non-invasive and low-cost diagnostic kit for Alzheimer's disease (QPLEX Alz plus assay) that test for multiple biomarkers found in blood.

Amyloid PET

Cerebrospinal fluid test

QPLEX^TM Alz plus assay, Alzheimer's disease early diagnosis kit

QPLEX Alz plus assay detects multiple Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers from patient plasma using our QMAP platform. The test utilizes a proprietary algorithm to determine whether amyloid beta is pathological. The test can predict early Alzheimer's disease before the onset of dementia by detecting indirectly whether amyloid beta is being accumulated in the brain.