An Alzheimer's blood test is on the way. What could that mean for you?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more. Hey, Tegan Taylor here from Life Matters. Do you rely on grandparents to help pay the bills or look after the kids? You're not alone. Life has gotten busier, more expensive and grandparents are picking up the slack. This July on Radio National, The Grandparent Trap explores the changing role of grandparents in modern family life. The Grandparent Trap and much more on Life Matters. Search for Life Matters on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
So Priya, if I was to offer you a test for Alzheimer's disease, would you take it? Oh, I'd have a lot of questions. In the bloom of youth?
Well, it depends because I have no symptoms. So is it a diagnostic test or a screening test? And if it's a screening test, I would have to think very hard.
A lot of news this week about the Alzheimer's blood test and we're going to explore just what that means.
And that's what's coming up on this week's health report.
I'm Norman Swan on Gadigal land.
And I'm Priya Alexander on Wurundjeri land.
Also on the show today, the remarkable story behind this new Ebola vaccine. In fact, there's four new Ebola vaccines in development and how they're operating at high speed.
And in terms of medical abortion rates, Australia is very low compared to high-income countries. Why is that the case? In general practice, there is a study that's looked at access and why maybe our rates are so low. Very interesting.
In the news, endometriosis is something we've covered a lot of on the Health Report recently, and women still wait up to seven years for a diagnosis, so there can still be a long period with no diagnosis, pelvic pain, heavy vaginal bleeding, lots of symptoms. There may be a saliva test that is available to women in Australia soon, and health reporter Lauren Roberts from the Northern Territory has done a digital piece on this. Lauren, thank you for joining us on the Health Report. Thank you for having me. So what is the test? It's a saliva test.
What is it looking for? It's a probability test. So I'll just be clear with that straight up front. It's called the Z-Wig EndoTest. It's from a French startup. And what it does is it looks for tiny non-coding RNA molecules and it's looking for patterns which have been linked with endometriosis. And then it kind of analyzes all of that with the help of artificial intelligence and
What news introduced the episode and which health stories will be covered?
and return some data which indicates whether someone likely has endometriosis based on these patterns or likely doesn't.
And presumably because it's a probability test, there's all of leeway as to whether or not it's accurate.
Well, yes. And this is why we kind of need the real world data. So there's a couple of studies going on at the moment. One is in France. That's an 18 month study. We should have results of that later this year. And there's a three year trial that's happening in the United Kingdom at the moment. So both of those are going to give us a bit of a better understanding about how this test works in the real world, because it's kind of just been tested in small specific settings at the moment. And the manufacturer says that it can pick up 97% of people with endometriosis and 93% percent of people that don't have the disease
And it's not meant to replace transvaginal ultrasound or laparoscopy where they go in and actually have a look for the tissue. It's kind of an adjuvant, is it? It's an add-on in the workup.
Yeah, well, they're using it as a complementary diagnostic tool in the United Kingdom at the moment, which is how they're kind of seeing how it fits in with the existing system. So at the moment, what they're doing is trying to cut down the long wait times that a lot of people do experience on a specialist recommendation using the endotest. And then based on the results from that, they can make different recommendations. Because even a transvaginal ultrasound, it can be quite uncomfortable or painful for someone with endometriosis if they have tight vaginal muscles. So even though that in Australia is the best recommendation for the first line treatment, it's not always smooth.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:36
2
What news introduced the episode and which health stories will be covered?
2:36–6:40
3
What is the saliva EndoTest and how reliable is it for diagnosing endometriosis?
6:40–14:58
4
How might the Z-Wig EndoTest change patient pathways and what are its limitations?
14:58–25:11
5
What recent evidence about newborn vitamin K has raised public concern?
25:11–43:02
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from Health Report
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