Nearly a year after Roche launched the first blood test to support diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, a the pTau217 plasma test is about to enter the Australian market outside of research settings – but while interest is high, so is misinformation.

In recent years, social media sites including TikTok, Instagram and Facebook have been rife with posts and misleading claims about what the tests can and can’t do, an analysis by University of Sydney researchers has found.

For example, more than a third of the 188 social media posts the team reviewed suggested the blood tests could screen healthy people without symptoms – but this conflicts with clinical recommendations due to the increased risk of false positives in asymptomatic individuals.

Accounts with explicit financial interests were more than three times as likely to promote  testing for asymptomatic people, the researchers found.

That said, the messaging has been confusing – with sources including the RACGP noting that “GPs could one day be offering patients the ‘holy grail’ test, which could detect biomarkers up to two decades before symptoms appear.”

Nearly half of the social media posts in the Sydney Uni study were from doctors. Yet just 36% of the posts included any evidence to support their claims at all – and among the minority that did, less than a quarter cited a specific study.

With misinformation spreading so quickly – unrealistic expectations are common.

To help combat this, and support GPs in assessing patients with cognitive concerns and appropriately applying the tests for blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease, Healthed has partnered with clinicians who have a special interest in the area to develop a clinical algorithm.

This resource was supported by an independent educational grant from Roche.