The article examines the objective, findings, and clinical context described in What Can Skin Reveal About Dementia?.
Approach:
Clinical context: Todd Levine, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at CND Life Sciences, discusses skin biopsy testing and its potential clinical utility.
Biomarker: Skin biopsy testing detects cutaneous P-SYN, an abnormal protein associated with synucleinopathies. An investigational digital system to quantify P-SYN is being studied for research use.
Studies discussed: The interview describes findings from the Syn-D study and a separate six-month study of people with dementia with Lewy bodies.
Key Findings:
The interview reports that a 2024 JAMA study found P-SYN levels correlated with measures of disease severity.
In Syn-D, cutaneous P-SYN was detected in some participants with mild cognitive impairment associated with suspected dementia with Lewy bodies, before they met clinical criteria for dementia.
Syn-D participants’ P-SYN levels increased during longitudinal follow-up.
In a six-month DLB study, the estimated annualized increase in cutaneous P-SYN from baseline to six months was approximately 52%.
Some Syn-D participants had both cutaneous P-SYN and abnormal p-tau 217 findings, consistent with possible coexisting Lewy body and Alzheimer’s disease pathologies.
Interpretation:
The interview presents skin biopsy for P-SYN and Alzheimer’s biomarkers such as p-tau 217 as complementary measures that may help characterize underlying pathology. Quantitative skin biopsy is being investigated for tracking changes over time and evaluating treatment effects.
Limitations:
The digital P-SYN quantification system is investigational and currently studied for research use.
The interview states that larger studies are needed to validate longitudinal P-SYN measurement.
Further research is needed to clarify how quantitative measurements may contribute to clinical applications.
Conclusion:
Skin biopsy can detect cutaneous P-SYN; the role of quantitative measurements in evaluating dementia and monitoring disease-related changes remains under study.
