Cost-effectiveness comparison between blood biomarkers and conventional tests in Alzheimer's disease diagnosis

Abstract

Dementia management has evolved with drugs such as lecanemab, shifting management from palliative care to early diagnosis and intervention. However, the administration of these drugs presents challenges owing to the invasiveness, high cost and limited availability of amyloid-PET and cerebrospinal fluid tests for guiding drug administration. Our manuscript explores the potential of less invasive blood biomarkers as a diagnostic method, with a cost-effectiveness analysis and a comparison with traditional tests. Our findings suggest that blood biomarkers are a cost-effective alternative, but with lower accuracy, indicating the need for multiple specific biomarkers for precision. This underscores the importance of future research on new blood biomarkers and their clinical efficacy.