Test being developed for Parkinson's

NEW YORK, March 12 (UPI) -- New York researchers say they hope their profile of molecular biomarkers may make possible a diagnostic blood test for Parkinson's disease.

The study, published in the journal Brain, reports that changes in dozens of small molecules in serum form a unique pattern in people with Parkinson's disease -- a neurodegenerative disorder.

The researchers compared blood samples from 66 Parkinson's disease patients not undergoing treatment against 25 healthy controls. The metabolomic analysis included more than 2,000 small molecules found in the blood. Metabolomics is the study of changes in distinct, very small molecules in body fluids or tissue.

The researchers say they discovered a clear differentiation between the metabolomic profiles of the Parkinson's disease patients versus those of the controls. No one molecule was definitive, but a pattern of about 160 compounds emerged that was highly specific to Parkinson's patients.

"A reliable blood test for Parkinson's disease would revolutionize not only the care of people with this debilitating illness, it would facilitate research as well," study senior author Dr. M. Flint Beal of Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center says in a statement. "Right now, a Parkinson's diagnosis is made solely on a clinical review of symptoms -- we have no biologic test."