Australians will soon get access to a new Alzheimer’s blood test that can identify changes in the brain decades before symptoms first appear.
For women, who are most at risk of the disease, it’s a ground-breaking development that is set to transform early detection and treatment. The blood test will deliver results in 18 minutes.
The blood plasma test, known as pTau217, has been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Its announcement comes alongside today’s launch of the Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence for Alzheimer’s disease Diagnosis at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) by Health Minister Mark Butler.
The centre, located in Sydney, is a collaboration between NeuRA and Swiss healthcare giant Roche. It will be overseen by neurologist Dr Emma Devenney and NeuRA CEO Professor Matthew Kiernan.
The new test works by detecting two proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease which begin to accumulate in the brain decades before symptoms develop.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia.
Dementia is the leading cause of death in Australia, with close to 450,000 people currently living with dementia. Roughly two-thirds of these people have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
The impact on women
Women are more likely to be living with dementia than men. In 2025, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimated that just over 274,000 women were living with dementia, compared to 164,000 men.
Dementia is also the leading cause of death of women in Australia and recent data shows that 62.4 per cent of people who die from dementia were women. Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death for men.
The rate of dementia rises quickly with age. According to AIHW, it rises from less than one person per 1,000 Australians aged 30–59, to 71 per 1,000 Australians aged 75–79, and then to 427 per 1,000 Australians aged 90 and over.
For the oldest age group, the rate of dementia among women is 1.4 times the rate for men.
A recent analysis by Jean Hailes found only around one in six women know that dementia was the leading cause of death among women in Australia. Most women were also unaware that factors like blood pressure and hearing problems can influence dementia risk.
The prevalence of dementia in the community is also expected to rise rapidly in the coming years. It’s predicted to rise from just under 439,000 in 2025 to nearly 1.1 million in 2066, including around 670,000 women.
What the new blood test means
For individuals and families, the value of having access to the new blood test and potential early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is transformational.
Diagnosis currently takes years from the time a person first notices symptoms. Often, the diagnosis timeline is around three years because the only way to detect the presence of proteins that cause Alzheimer’s is through a PET scan or testing spinal fluid with a lumbar procedure. These are expensive and not always accessible, especially in regional and remote areas.
The breakthrough means people may get earlier access to disease-modifying drugs and better support and information to ensure adequate, early care.