A Newcastle-based precision medicine team has made a major discovery in the treatment of schizophrenia that will lead to better diagnosis and treatment.
The team, led by Professor Murray Cairns at Hunter Medical Research Institute, discovered a unique biomarker in the blood of people with schizophrenia.
A blood test for the disease would lead to more precise treatment and the capacity to analyse patients before and after treatment.
"Schizophrenia is a devastating condition," said Professor Cairns, of University of Newcastle.
"We need to work out who's at risk earlier and what medication works best to avoid a lot of unnecessary misery and suicide risk.
"At the moment there's not a blood test that's effective. None have made it into clinics."
The team's discovery of blood biomarkers for the condition, published in Science Advances, gives "a window into the neurons inside the brain".
It's a new technique pioneered in partnership with the Australian Schizophrenia Research Biobank.
"It's a tremendous advance because it enables us to analyse hundreds and potentially thousands of people, rather than dozens," Professor Cairns said.
"Because the brain and these disorders are so complicated, you need to analyse many people to get a really good view of what's important overall."
Professor Cairns said schizophrenia was "way more common than people think", with almost one per cent of people diagnosed during their lifetime.
"Up to 50 per cent end up with treatment-resistant disease," he said.
"It can take up to five years to get the right treatment. It's important to identify those people early to get them on the right medication and get the disease under control."
As well as lowering the risk of suicide, early identification would help prevent "chronic illness from years of poor treatment".
Professor Cairns said many people had heard of psychotic symptoms, such as hearing voices and delusions.
"But the biggest concern with chronic schizophrenia is cognitive symptoms, where brain function is impaired."
He said the condition can cause people to "lose their personality and desire to interact with others".
Schizophrenia has many different causes.
A one-off psychotic episode can occur through things like serious physical illness, drug use and traumatic head injury.
"Most recover, but some end up having a longer term diagnosis of schizophrenia," he said.
"It's important to help people experiencing psychosis quickly before they withdraw from work and social connections and before an acute episode becomes a chronic condition.
"If you better match the treatment to the causes, you'll get more specific and enduring outcomes rather than just treating the symptoms."
While it was important to treat symptoms, many were "not well targeted by standard medication".
Schizophrenia is usually diagnosed in the late teens to early 30s.
Professor Cairns said it had been difficult to understand the disease because previous research required tissue to be extracted from the brain, which can only be done postmortem.
"We've never had more than a few dozen brains. People don't tend to donate their brain to science. It's pretty rare to get postmortem tissue from people with diseases," he said.
"We're excited about exploring the use of this non-invasive approach more broadly in other brain disorders, which have collectively been estimated to affect one in three individuals throughout life and cost about $2.5 trillion annually."
