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Hot on the heels of the Bipolar Burble’s post about the neurobiological evidence for major depressive disorder comes this: the first blood-based diagnostic aid for schizophrenia.
Um, what’s that again?
[At this time I’m forced to remind you that I am not a doctor or researcher and everything stated is my opinion or interpretation. Thanks.]
A company VeriPsych, affiliated with Rules-Based Medicine Inc., is offering a blood test for schizophrenia. Or, more specifically, they are offering to test your blood and supply a likelihood that you have recent-onset schizophrenia.
A sample VeriPsych Conditional Probability of Schizophrenia report can be found here.
The VeriPsych folks, through Rules-Based Medicine, apparently in conjunction with the US Military, ran a study to look for biomarkers of schizophrenia and then develop a test for them. (I should mention here the only thing VeriPsych appears to do, according to their web site, is offer this “diagnostic aid for schizophrenia.”)
Now, admittedly I am not a doctor or a researcher, but here’s what I make of the VeriPsych schizophrenia biomarkers study.
[FYI: Biomarker: a protein measured in blood whose concentration reflects the severity or presence of some disease state.]
Specifically: Validation of a Blood-Based Laboratory Test to Aid in the Confirmation of a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia by Emanuel Schwarz et al. Biomarker Insights 2010:5 39–47
The study was in two phases, in the first phase researchers looked for reproducible schizophrenia biomarkers and in the second phase, a test was developed to use these biomarkers to test for schizophrenia.
Initial assessment resulted in the finding of 22 biomarkers. These were retested in 63 subjects 3 months later and showed a correlation of 0.83 (83%).
Nine addition biomarkers were added for phase two due to known association with schizophrenia.
VeriPsych then did something odd: they included 20 biomarkers they felt indicated bipolar disorder, “to facilitate the future development of a test with differential diagnosis capability,” and to “enhance[d] the accuracy of VeriPsych.” (The former is from the research paper, the latter is from the website.)
This says to me they are really testing 31 biomarkers of schizophrenia, and 20 for “other reasons.” So when they claim to use a 51 biomarker test, that stretches the truth a little.
Also, the numbers on these seem to vary from the paper to the website making it difficult to deduce exactly how many biomarkers are used for each purpose. A spot on the website says: 36 identified and 15 added. Sorry, it’s just not clear.
There are some super-math algorithms and statistics going on here, but from what I can tell:
Good question. No one except the lab (Rules-Based Medicine) from what I can tell. This is not an FDA-approved test as it is a “laboratory-developed test.”
Laboratory-developed tests are:
So, Is This a Blood Test to Diagnose Schizophrenia?No. It isn’t. This isn’t a blood test to diagnose schizophrenia. They mention this on their home page. This test is to, “aid a psychiatrist in the diagnosis of recent-onset schizophrenia.”
In other words, it’s a freaking guess with a number attached.
This test can’t tell you whether you have schizophrenia, it can provide a somewhat-accurate statistical likelihood. So how useful is that? You have an x% chance of schizophrenia plus-or-minus some variable. Based on one study by one company Does that sound useful? Actionable?
It doesn’t to me.
This is a money-grab taking advantage of desperate mentally ill people.
I actually find this “diagnostic aid” blood test for schizophrenia to be bordering on unethical. VeriPsych can cover their ass with math and statistics and probabilities and legal-eze and I’m sure that makes it “OK,” but if you ask me, they are a hair’s breath away from lying. It feels irresponsible to me to hand out these kinds of results about a very serious illness based on one study. One. And there is so much math needed to make this model work that I would fall down dead if there wasn’t a mistake in there somewhere. Nobody gets it right the first time.
This test should be in a lab, used for further research and study, and not be used on the paying public.
(I have other reasons why I don’t like this test too, but as this has gone on long enough, I’ll save them for another day.)
Natasha Tracy is an award-winning writer, speaker, advocate, and consultant from the Pacific Northwest. She has been living with bipolar disorder for 26 years and has written more than 2000 articles on the subject.
Find more of Natasha’s work in her acclaimed book: "Lost Marbles: Insights into My Life with Depression & Bipolar" on Amazon.
Connect with Natasha at the social media links below.
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I’m thinking about getting the test. I had my kids when I thought the environmental component to schizophrenia was a lot higher than the genetic component. But there are simply too many people in my family who have high anxiety, OCD, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and/or schizoaffective disorder. These illnesses are all related genetically. And the extent that we have one or more of them doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what our childhoods were like. My kids are now asking me whether or not it is okay for them to have kids. What am I supposed to tell them? What can I or they do to know their risk of having a child who ends up with one or more of these illnesses?
Hi Natasha,
thanks for your insightful blog on this. Blood based bio-marker tests for mental illness just came out here in Oz on TV. On the TV report they said that in one study (done here in Australia) that 112 people with schizophrenia and 80 without had blood samples taken. But they didn’t say if those with schizophrenia were receiving treatment for their illness. If they were, doesn’t the presence of medications affect the results? If not, I find that highly unbelievable, as I doubt that you would find 112 people in the whole of this country with schizophrenia who are not on medications. Either way, this point has not been made clear. Also, it was only a few years back that some in the medical community were making statements about a possible link between mental illness and structural changes in the brain. Those in the medical community were eventually silenced when it was shown that antipsychotics cause structural changes in the brain and cause brain damage if used long term…
Anyway thanks for your blog..
Hi Justin,
Well, in the study I was talking about above I believe that there were medication naive patients used as they were military, if I recall (it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed the data).
And as for biomarkers, yes, some might change with treatment, others not.
And, FYI, there are structural changes in the brain due to mental illness and not just medication.
– Natasha Tracy
Woops, sorry about that…here’s the link.
A Blood Test for Depression?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100722092330.htm
Warmly,
Herb
vnsdepression@gmail.com
http://www.vnstherapy-herb.blogspot.com/
Hi Herb,
Yeah, that’s really just an article saying, “we think we know something that might lead to something years from now.”
There are a lot of those. Might make a scientist jump up and down, but me? Still sitting.
– Natasha Tracy