You can learn more here from the Art of Autism. However, many involved in autism spectrum advocacy and collaboration argue to drop the term “disorder” as well as labels such as “high functioning” and “low functioning”. Note: This article refers to the autism spectrum as “Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)” parallel with current research areas. Will this test change the face of ASD diagnosis and treatment – what do you think? Does the algorithm perform similarly across the autism spectrum?.Are the metabolites readily measured in ASD diagnostic settings?.Will the algorithm be validated in additional data sets?.There are several things to consider moving forward with a diagnostic test for ASD, including: Unlike behavioral symptoms that do not emerge until later in development, a blood test can be administered at younger ages allowing for earlier diagnosis and intervention. Instead, the Hahn research group focuses on new techniques for systems engineering and analysis and the application of those analyses to biochemical systems – like the methionine and transsulfuration pathways for ASD. The RPI lab, led by Juergen Hahn, is not an autism-focused lab. Both pathways have been implicated in ASD physiology, and by using information on 24 metabolites instead of just one, the predictive algorithm had 88% accuracy rate when applied to a new data set. So what was the reason for success in this new endeavor? Instead of exploring for a single metabolite that predicts ASD diagnosis, researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) utilized big data methods to find patterns in metabolites involved in metabolic pathways implicated in ASD physiology. Efforts to identify a single metabolic marker for ASD has fallen short. Blood tests for other diseases often test for a single marker, such as carcinoembryonic antigen for colon, lung, and liver cancer, or TRU-QUANT (CA27.29) for breast cancer. Last month, the first blood test for autism was confirmed as highly accurate in a secondary trial. Depiction of ASD aspects at each part of the spectrum (image courtesy of Rebecca Burgess).Ī blood test to diagnose ASD has been nothing but a pipe dream…until now. With 1 in 59 children identified with ASD and median diagnosis age ranging from 3 to 5 years, research in the field has been two-pronged: characterizing the variability in the disorder and improving diagnostic tests. Some symptoms common to ASD are common to other disorders as well and therefore do not aid in diagnosis. One of the challenges in diagnosing ASD is the variability in symptoms along the spectrum, and the change in developmental standards with age. However up until now, diagnosis of ASD has been driven by clinical observations, often behaviors not yet formed in children this young, and consequently most children are diagnosed around 4 or 5 years.Įarlier diagnosis allows for specialized interventions that capitalize on the plasticity of toddler’s brains while implementing proven behavioral therapies like applied behavioral analysis and developmental relationship-based approaches to promote communication and social interaction. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening children for ASD between 1.5 – 2 years of age. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and social interaction and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. Hahn is eager to move forward, saying, “This is an approach that we would like to see move forward into clinical trials and ultimately into a commercially available test.When it comes to diagnosing children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), earlier is better. Hopefully, this new test will be moved swiftly on to the next stage of research, so that it may soon be available to clinicians. “The most meaningful result is the high degree of accuracy we are able to obtain using this approach on data collected years apart from the original dataset.”Īn estimated 1 in 59 children in the United States has ASD, and being able to spot the condition at the earliest possible age is known to improve outcomes.

Hahn thinks that this is because the two missing metabolites were shown to be strong indicators in the last study. While 88 percent is an impressive result, it is lower than the success rate from the previous studies. When they applied the algorithm, it predicted ASD correctly in 88 percent of cases. Their results were published this month in the journal Bioengineering and Translational Medicine, and they are encouraging. This time, however, they only had access to information on 22 of the 24 metabolic markers they had used in the last trial. They assessed data from 154 children with ASD, taken by researchers from the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute in Little Rock.

Blood test for autism spectrum disorder