Potential biomarkers for dementia in Trinidad and Tobago

Biomarkers that could possibly discriminate between healthy controls and patients with dementias of the Alzheimer's type (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) were investigated. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition TR (DSM IV TR) was used to diagnose for dementia in Trinidad. Healthy seniors greater than 60 years old were controls. All participants were administered the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and had blood analyzed for levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), total homocysteine (tHcy) and microglial antibodies (MgAb). Plasma tHcy was determined on the Abbot AxSym, serum CRP concentrations were measured using the Tina-Quant sCRP (Latex) high sensitive immunoturbidimetric assay and serum MgAb were examined on frozen rat brain sections. The study was carried out on 29 patients that fulfilled the inclusion criteria and 46 controls. Of the patients 65.5% had AD and 34.5% had VaD. Significant differences were found between the mean MMSE scores of the different types of dementias and controls. MgAb presence as well as tHcy were able to distinguish between controls and dementia of the AD and VaD type, respectively. The MMSE is a good discriminative tool for dementias. Serum MgAbs are a possible biomarker for Alzheimer disease pathology and tHcy is elevated in patients with vascular dementia.