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Biomarkers 101 : What Are They and Why Are They Important ?
Today , doctors can diagnose , treat and assess risk for many diseases through simple tests for biomarkers , or measurable characteristics in the body . One example is heart disease . Doctors can predict your risk of developing heart disease by testing your blood pressure or your cholesterol levels . Then , they can prescribe medicine to help prevent heart disease . This involves two types of biomarkers :
Diagnostic biomarkers are associated with the presence of disease . These biomarkers direct diagnosis and treatment , and help select people for studies , giving trials the greatest likelihood of success and cutting time and cost . Progression biomarkers change over time in a way that can be linked to disease . This type of biomarker is critically needed for clinical trials — particularly trials of treatments to prevent , slow or stop disease — to objectively measure whether the drug is working .
There are a few advanced brain imaging techniques ( e . g ., DaTscan ) that can help researchers measure Parkinson ’ s in its earliest stages , but no widely available and affordable
Through PPMI , researchers are looking all over the body for physical and cellular characteristics that show disease risk , presence or progression .
biomarker tests have been conclusively validated . The variation in Parkinson ’ s from person to person and the complex nature of brain diseases presents challenges in finding and validating PD biomarkers .
Through PPMI , researchers are looking all over the body for physical and cellular characteristics that show disease risk , presence or progression . They are using brain imaging to visualize proteins linked to PD in the living brain , fluid and tissue sampling to test levels of proteins or other markers in blood , urine , spinal fluid or tissue , and non-invasive tests leveraging technology to diagnose PD . We likely need to use a combination of biomarkers ( imaging , biologics and clinical ) in the same individual over time to measure PD .