CLEVELAND: Cleveland Clinic is now one of eight sites in the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative Healthcare System Preparedness (DAC-SP) Accurate Diagnosis project, which aims to develop a pathway for accurate and timely Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis using blood-based biomarkers in primary and specialty care settings.
Cleveland Clinic’s site will focus on implementing blood-based biomarkers as part of new patient visits at the Center for Geriatric Medicine, with support from the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health for patients seeking confirmatory testing and novel therapeutics.
The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC) is a worldwide initiative seeking to cure Alzheimer’s disease and improve brain health. The DAC-SP Accurate Diagnosis project represents the first-ever global implementation study to examine biomarker pathology assessments throughout the Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD) diagnostic pathway.
This project builds on years of foundational research by Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Geriatric Medicine, which has focused on identifying barriers to Alzheimer’s diagnosis and improving the integration of diagnostic testing into primary care. The goal of this project is to enable healthcare providers to use these tests, traditionally employed in research settings, in everyday clinical practice, accelerating the translation of validated tools from research to timely patient care.
The Alzheimer’s Accurate Diagnosis Project at Cleveland Clinic is a collaborative effort among clinicians from the Primary Care Institute, Neurological Institute, and the Diagnostics Institute. Using a rigorous process, Cleveland Clinic will deploy, evaluate, and share clinical-use learnings for blood-based biomarkers and confirmatory diagnostic testing.
The sample size for this study will include 1,200 Cleveland Clinic patients who are at least 55 years old and have suspected cognitive impairment without a pre-existing diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias. Study sites include all Cleveland Clinic Center for Geriatric Medicine locations and Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health outpatient practices throughout Northeast Ohio.
Cleveland Clinic will join the DAC Healthcare System Preparedness Program Community of Practice with the aim to provide more timely and accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease within healthcare systems around the world.
“We are committed to advancing timely diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in all resource settings, around the world, thus leveraging learnings for the benefit of all,” said Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative Founding Chairman George Vradenburg. “The Accurate Diagnosis project in Cleveland Clinic will help catalyze healthcare system change and will make patient-centered care and support more widely accessible.”
Study sites will share learnings with DAC-SP and each other in regular community of practice meetings throughout the 18-month project.
“Participating in this program is an important step towards integrating a timely clinical and biological diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease into dementia care pathways, which is expected to improve diagnostic accuracy and access to appropriate resources including therapeutics,” said Saket Saxena, M.D., geriatrician at the Center for Geriatric Medicine and principal investigator of the project.
To benefit other healthcare systems interested in adopting similar efforts, the learnings and practical resources from the Accurate Diagnosis project will be shared as part of the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative Early Detection Blueprint.
Other sites participating in the Accurate Diagnosis project include: University of Kansas Health System and University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Alzheimer Center Amsterdam at Amsterdam UMC, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), Hospital Munich – Alzheimer’s Therapy and Research Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Geriatrics and Gerontology.
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