A research team from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed a blood test to detect autism by measuring metabolites from blood samples well in advance. The research work was recently published in Bioengineering & Translational Medicine.

Juergen Hahn, PhD, the lead author cum professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said,  “We are able to predict with 88 percent accuracy whether children have autism; The previous study had developed an algorithm that makes use of concentrations of components in your blood to predict if the blood came from a child with ASD or a typically developing peer.”

Hahn claimed that two cellular pathways named methionine cycle and the transsulfuration pathway were suspected to be linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This blood test predicted autism with an accuracy rate of 88%. Hahn further added, “If this can be further replicated in a larger cohort recruited at multiple sites, then there is the promise of having a commercially available test in the future that can support an autism diagnosis; Such a test would not replace existing observational diagnoses but can supplement them.”

Hahn noted that it would take several years to reach the market. Samuel Malloy, the medical director at Dr. Felix, an online pharmacy in the UK said, “With the complexity and breadth of diagnosis, a blood test for autism seems unlikely to be able to take into account these individual differences unless the diagnostic criteria are developed further.”

Another alternative blood and urine tests to detect autism were developed by Naila Rabbani, a researcher from the University of Warwick in England along with her team, where ASD was linked to blood plasma proteins through oxidation and glycation.