Effectiveness, price, availability… What you need to know about the blood test to detect bipolar disorder

Le test sanguin est disponible depuis ce 1er avril. ILLUSTRATION MIDI LIBRE – SAMUEL DUPLAIX

Depuis ce lundi 1er avril, un nouveau test sanguin est commercialisé en France. Il permet de détecter les biomarqueurs de la bipolarité.

Differentiating bipolar disorders from depression, whose symptoms can be similar, is the ambition of a new blood test launched by Synlab laboratories and Alcediag this Monday April 1st.

Ten years of diagnosing the disease

Called MyEDIT-B, this test would check whether a patient has bipolarity. Until presented, it took on average ten years to diagnose this disease which affects 1.6 million French people, underlines the Synlab laboratory in a press release.

The blood test, accessible on psychiatric prescription to adult patients "currently treated for a characterized depressive episode, moderate or severe", will offer reliable results in 80% of cases, within one month.

An expensive but advantageous test

The issue is all the more important as depression and bipolar disorders are not treated in the same way. "Making the right diagnosis very early is one of the main challenges for clinicians, because bipolar disorders often lead to devastating consequences for patients: social isolation, academic difficulties or professional, addictions, dangerous behavior, sleep disorders, suicide attempts…", underlines the Synlab laboratory.

The test is expensive: it should be marketed at the price of 899 euros and will unfortunately not be reimbursed by the Social security.

Despite a high cost, it has several advantages: improving patient care obviously, but also "less than& rsquo;hospitalizations, fewer consultations and therefore we save psychiatrist time and optimize the well-being of users", specifies the medical director of Alcediag.