Blood tests detect Alzheimer’s and other dementias in diverse Latin American groups
Mar 5th 2026
A multinational study in six Latin American countries shows simple blood biomarkers can accurately detect Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration, and that adding cognitive tests and MRI substantially improves diagnostic accuracy.
- Study enrolled 605 volunteers from memory clinics in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.
- Blood biomarkers alone identified Alzheimer’s disease with 83 percent accuracy and frontotemporal lobar degeneration with 88 percent accuracy.
- Phosphorylated tau was the strongest marker for Alzheimer’s disease while neurofilament light chain best indicated frontotemporal lobar degeneration.
- Combining blood tests with cognitive assessments and MRI raised accuracy to 90 percent for Alzheimer’s and 96 percent for frontotemporal lobar degeneration.
- Most participants had predominantly Amerindian genetic ancestry.
- The study was cross sectional and did not use cerebrospinal fluid or postmortem confirmation as gold standards.
- Findings support wider testing of blood biomarkers in underrepresented regions but require longitudinal validation and gold standard comparisons.