Thao Thanh Tran1, Napapon Sailasuta1,
Martin Watterson2, Louis Brenes3, Brian D. Ross4
1MRS , Huntington Medical
Research Institutes, Pasadena, CA, United States; 2Feinberg School
of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States; 3Imaging
Specialists of Pasadena; 4MRS, Huntington Medical Research
Institutes, Pasadena, CA, United States
Drug development for treatment of Alzheimers disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) has been both expensive and unsuccessful, using currently recognized clinical endpoints (MMSE, etc). While drug discovery needs additional thought, FDA, NIA and Pharma now recommend use of objective disease end points (biomarkers) in place of clinical diagnosis as a means of reducing group size and therefore cost of trials. Short echo time MRS, with standard operating procedure (SOP, biomarker NAA/mI should be added to ADNI protocols for diagnosis of AD and MCI.