Catching the onset of Parkinson’s Disease early can be critical to slowing the disease’s progression and improving a patient’s life. A new test that uses nothing more than a sample of someone’s ear wax is set to do exactly that.
Despite the fact that an estimated 10 million people live with Parkinson’s Disease, there is currently no definitive test to spot the condition in its early stages. To identify someone with Parkinson’s, doctors rely on cognitive and motor skill testing, which can be inexact and have a degree of bias involved. Other tests include imaging, which can rule out other conditions rather than confirm a Parkinson’s diagnosis, and a response to Parkinson’s medication – in which people who might not have the disease take a prescription designed to combat its effects.
Progress in diagnosing the disease is happening, however. Earlier this year, we even reported on how a simple eye test might help spot the condition early.
One of the more promising ways to spot Parkinson’s early has to do with the way in which the disease impacts the oily layer of our skin known as sebum. In 2021, a team of scientists found 10 biomarkers that were heightened or lowered in patients with Parkinson’s by analyzing sebum collected with non-invasive skin swabs. Using that data, the researchers were able to distinguish between those who had the condition and those who didn’t with an 85% rate of accuracy.
Understanding that our skin is exposed to environmental conditions that can alter its composition but seeing the value in using sebum to detect Parkinson’s, researchers led by scientists from a range of universities and research institutes in China turned to a different source of sebum: ear wax. Unlike our skin secretions, ear wax is more protected and therefore offers a more pure read on our sebum composition.
To conduct their study, the researchers swabbed the ears of 209 adults, 108 of whom had Parkinson’s disease. After analyzing the wax using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, they identified four different volatile organic compounds (VOC) that were significantly lower in Parkinson’s patients than in those without the condition. Next, the team trained a sniff-enabled AI system on the data. Once the training was complete, the system was able to distinguish Parkinson’s patients from non-Parkinson’s patients with an accuracy rate of 94%.
Such a successful test, say the researchers, could provide doctors with an inexpensive, non-invasive early diagnostic tool in identifying Parkinson’s Disease. However, they say more research is needed.
“This method is a small-scale single-center experiment in China,” says study co-author Hao Dong. “The next step is to conduct further research at different stages of the disease, in multiple research centers and among multiple ethnic groups, in order to determine whether this method has greater practical application value.”
The study has been published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
Source: American Chemical Society
