A family member just attended an HD family day in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She said a lab in Ottawa has allegedly made an important discovery and will be announcing it in Boston this summer. She said she thinks it has something to do with detecting the onset of HD by a change in a person's blood - so even before you would see the physical or mental signs.

Does this make any sense to you? What would be the benefit of detecting the onset of HD before they show signs?

I'll be in Boston at the Hereditary Disease Foundation conference in August so I am sure I will hear about it. Yes, this makes sense. The search is on for biomarkers which can serve two purposes:

1) to identify when changes start taking place so that early treatment can start. No matter how safe and well tolerated a drug is, there's no sense in giving to patients earlier than necessary.

2) to find changes that increase over time from early onset to late stage disease and which can be measured with sensitivity so that clinical trials can be shortened. Right now it takes two to three years or even more before researchers can tell if a drug is slowing the disease. That makes trials very expensive and delays the time it takes to get treatments to patients. Biomarkers could shorten trials considerably. The new CoQ10 trial is planned for FIVE YEARS.

Thanks....it makes sense to me now!