In reply

We read with extreme interest the commentary by Blasko et al on our article published in the Archives of Neurology and are very glad that our data foster debate on the possibility of identifying a peripheral biochemical marker for the diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD). We are perfectly aware that at the present time we cannot claim to have found such a marker. Nevertheless, we would like to reply to the following points raised by Blasko et al. They argue that (1) the term isoform is misleading because the protein bands we find in platelets may be caused by different forms of maturation of the same protein, (2) the alterations we observed may be secondary to the inflammation process, and (3) only a subset of patients can test positive for this alteration.