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Blood Test Blood Test F OR THE ROUGHLY 25 MILLION A mer ica n adu lt s who t he National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates are affected by major depressive disorder (MDD) annually, the prospect of more accurate diagnosis is a boon. If further clinical trials confirm its viability, the first objective diagnostic tool for MDD may soon become ubiquitous in primary care offi ces. Eva E. Redei, PhD, David L. Stein Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, along with a team of researchers at the school, developed the blood test. "When there is suspicion of a cardio- vascular disease, several tests are done to know the degree and nature of it," Redei says. "Hopefully, it will be the same for depression." Adding the test to a primary care physi- cian's armamentarium could potentially improve MDD care in the same way blood tests and statins revolutionized cardiovascular care. "Any indication for depression in a clinical environment could prompt the health professional to order a blood test for MDD," Redei says. "Then the results, together with all the other information obtained, would be interpreted by the health professional — just like for any other medical [condition]." Diagnostic Challenge Without such a tool, psychiatrists rely on patients' self-reports for diag- noses. But because many symptoms associated with MDD can also be evi- dence of other psychiatric conditions and self-reports are far from definitive proof, diagnosis is essentially left to a mental health professional's judgment. "Current methods are based on a scripted psychiatric interview with the patient and [depend on] the psy- chiatrist's or psychologist's expertise to interpret the patient's behavior," Redei says. "So, if the patient is not able or willing to describe the symptoms, and/or the health professional does not have extensive knowledge of the RESEARCHERS MAY HAVE DEVELOPED A BLOOD TEST TO DIAGNOSE DEPRESSION IN ADULTS. By Michael Ferguson Could Improve Diagnosis of Depression SPECIAL CLINICAL SECTION: NEUROLOGY 1 8 | Minnesota MD NEWS ■ M D N E W S . CO M