Since the end of March a new tool has been available to psychiatrists in order to help them differentiate depression from bipolar disorder. This new test, called Edit-B, is able to set a difference between the disorders through a blood test, requiring less time and in a more precise way.
The latest data available has shown that about 2% of Italians is affected by bipolar disorder. However, according to experts, these estimates are down, mainly because the average diagnosis time are between 8 and 10 years. In this lapse of time, most of the patients do not receive proper pharmaceutical treatment, causing extremely debilitating consequences for the patients and their families.
The main difficulty in a faster diagnosis of this disorder, usually detected by clinical psychiatric examinations, is linked to the similarities that the symptoms of the two disorders have in common. Major Depressive disorder is characterised by low mood, loss of interest in things, sense of guilt, insomnia, and in the most sever cases, suicidal behaviour. Bipolar disorder is characterised by periods of depression alternated with periods of mania, distinguished by sudden elevated mood, with episodes of euphoria. Often patiens mistakenly think this mania periods are an improvement of their mental state and stop going to therapy. In addition to this, many patients have a history of substance abuse in order to hide their symptoms meanwhile other patients simply ignore their problems, thinking is a normal aspect of their life. This last example often happens when mood swings are minimized and considered normal during adolescence. All this reasons made diagnosis extremely complicated, until now.
Edit-B will give a diagnosis in a couple of days, ensuring an improvement of patients’ treatments. The in vitro blood test, that is already CE-IVD marked, will be able to measure the RNA editing on specific markers inside the blood. The test was created by SYNLAB and Alcediag, and is able to use the new generation seguencing technology (NGS), in addition to proprietary algorithms created by an artificial intelligence.
Two different clinical trials have already valued the results of this new diagnostic examination. The first one was carried out in France, at the psychiatric department of the Univeristy Hospital in Montpellier. The data collected has been published in the scientific journal Nature. The Edit-B test has showed a sensitivity of 91.2% and a specificity of 84.6% in a trial conducted on 245 patients. The second trial was carried out in a psychiatric hosptital in Les Toises, in Switzerland on 143 patients. The final data has not been published yet, but it has once again shown a sensitivity and specificity above 80%.