One of the things researchers know about Alzheimer's disease, which affects close to 50 million people worldwide,
老年痴呆症影响全球近五千万人口,
is that it produces a toxic protein called amyloid beta.
根据研究人员所知,这种疾病会产生一种名叫淀粉样蛋白的毒蛋白。
It can be detected by brain scan or analysis of the cerebral spinal liquid,
我们可以通过脑扫描或分析脑脊液来查明,
but both methods are too expensive and impractical for large-scale screening.
但这两种方法都太昂贵了,不适合大规模筛查。
Scientists in Australia and Japan say they have made a breakthrough in detection.
澳大利亚和日本科学家声称他们在该病检测方面取得了突破。
We have developed a super sensitive blood test that predicts who's going to develop the disease.
我们研发了一种超敏感血液检测法,它可以预测谁会患有痴呆症。
The test involves specially prepared blood plasma and the strong magnet,
该检测包括特殊制备的血浆和强力磁铁,
applied to blood samples from 252 Australian and 121 Japanese patients aged 60 to 90 years.
用它来检测252名澳大利亚和121名日本病人的血液样本,病人年龄在60-90之间。
The test proved to be almost 90% accurate.
检测精准度差不多是90%。
Japanese co-researcher, chemistry Nobel Prize winner Koichi Tanaka says scientists must still find the cure.
日本合作研究员,诺贝尔化学奖得主田中耕一表示,科学家们仍必须找到治疗方法。
If you're told by a doctor that you may be at risk of getting Alzheimer's disease in 20 to 30 years.
如果医生告诉你,你可能会在20到30年内患上老年痴呆症。
In a situation, where there is no cure, you wouldn't be able to do anything but feel worried over the test result.
在没有治愈方法的情况下,除了担心测试结果,你什么也做不了。
Several large biopharmaceutical companies around the world have expressed interest in the new test,
全球几家大型生物制药公司对它产生了兴趣,
which needs further evaluation before expected clinical trials.
要想进行临床试验,我们还需要进一步评估。
George Putic, VOA news
VOA新闻,乔治·普蒂克报道。