By Pauline Anderson

A new study suggests brain iron levels may predict disease progression in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) who carry the APOE ε4 risk allele.

Iron in the brain is an “underappreciated driver of disease progression” in AD, study author Ashley I. Bush, MBBS, PhD, senior principal research fellow, Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Australia, told Medscape Medical News.

“Measuring brain iron could be used to predict disease progression, and lowering brain iron levels might present as a novel therapeutic target to slow the disease process.”

Their findings were described in a letter published in the January issue of JAMA Neurology.

The researchers used data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database, which was launched in 2003 as a public–private partnership.

The primary goal of ADNI is to test whether serial MRI, positron emission tomography, other biological markers, and clinical and neuropsychological assessments can…