NBC News
A test designed to identify biomarkers related to autism in children from 1 to 36 months, and that only requires a hair strand, is now available in most states.
Linusbio, an emerging company based in New Jersey, launched the test on Thursday, called Clearstrand-Asd, which No It can diagnose The autistic spectrum disorder is nor designed to use itself. Its purpose is to help doctors discard autism in children that are more likely To suffer from it, either because close relatives are diagnosed or because they have shown behaviors associated with the disorder.
Manish Arora, co-founder of Linusbio and its executive director, said that Clearstrand-Asd is the only biochemical test available to detect autistic spectrum disorder in children under 18 months. Wait for the process of discarding autism to be more efficient and reduce waiting for those who need intervention or treatment.
“The approach is really in the early intervention,” Arora said, “as soon as possible, the better for children.”
The test uses children’s hair strands to analyze their metabolic records, which they count offer a look at the substances or toxins to which they have been exposed or that they have processed over time, he had previously explained to NBC News, sister chain of sister chain, sister chain Telemundo news.
His research has identified deregulation patterns in the exposure or metabolism of metals that, according to studies, could be related to autism. Hair can offer a kind of chronology of what happens in a child’s body, including metal exposure patterns during specific stages of development.
“We can detect the passage of autism with only approximately 1 centimeter of hair,” said Arora, comparing the operation of the test with the way in which the rings in the trunk of a tree can count what their surroundings were at a particular moment of their growth.
Food and drug administration (FDA, in English) has not approved Clearstrand-Asd. But as of this Thursday, it is available for consumers in 44 states, as long as they can pay the $ 2,750 that it costs (it is not yet eligible for medical insurance coverage).
The test can be requested by a primary care provider or directly through Linusbio, which establishes a Telesalud event with an independent doctor, Arora explained.
“You come with us, get a recipe from an independent doctor, we send you the kit and get a result in approximately three weeks,” he said.
The diagnostic tool is still in its early stages, so There are few data that support its effectiveness.
In the Conference of Metabolomics and Human Health in Ventura, California, this Thursday, Linusbio shared some new initial findings: in a group of 490 children in California with high risk of autistic spectrum disorder, the test could discard it with a precision of close to the 92.5%, according to the company. But the results have not been published in a peer reviewed magazine.
A 2022 study on the company’s methodology, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, analyzed a different test of Linusbio that is still under development and discovered that the methodology predicted precisely the diagnoses of autism (positive and negative) about 81 % of the time.
The test is one among several promising ideas that researchers are testing to identify or discard autism in the early life of a child. Other scientists are studying ocular movement, blood and audio analysis as possible methods.
Clearstrand-Asd works by passing a laser on the length of the hair that is being analyzed, which makes the strand into a plasma that can be processed by automatic learning algorithms. The results of the complete analysis occur within three weeks, after which the child’s parents make a telemedicine monitoring appointment.
For their part, external experts pointed out that the Linusbio hair strands test, although it is promising, needs more research. Stephen Sheinkopf, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri Medicine and the Thompson Center for autism and neurodevelopment said he has potential, but suggested that worried parents work closely with pediatricians or primary care doctors who monitor the development of the minors.
“Sometimes we see a new and brilliant tool and we want to ignore the things that are already available,” he concluded.
