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medpundit |
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Tuesday, August 03, 2004Alzheimer's researchers said commercial firms already have begun advertising brain scans to detect Alzheimer's, a practice they said had little value for most people and may even been detrimental. 'People are going to make money on these PET scans; there's no question about it,' said Michael Weiner, chairman of the neuroimaging working group of the Alzheimer's Association and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. In the last two years, positron emission tomography (PET) has developed to the point where it can detect the so-called plaques and tangles of proteins that accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. There also have been advances in magnetic resonance imaging. Still, except for research applications and very limited other uses, the technology has little value to the general public, according to several scientists who presented research here at the Ninth International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders. 'I have reservations about everybody jumping on the bandwagon,' said Shi-Jiang Li, a professor of biophysics at the Medical College of Wisconsin who is developing MRI scans to detect Alzheimer's. 'I think abuse is the right word.' Li noted that many healthy people in their 50s may have some plaques and tangles in their brains, but at the moment there is no way to determine if they will develop Alzheimer's disease. So save your $1500 to $2500 for something more enjoyable. posted by Sydney on 8/03/2004 10:35:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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