---
title: "Psych News Alert: Researchers Identify, Validate Potential Serum Biomarker Panel for First-Onset Schizophrenia"
description: The ability to firmly diagnose schizophrenia before symptoms of the disease arise can help improve patient outcomes by reducing periods o...
image: https://alert.psychnews.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/bloodvial_291945416-Jun-24-2025-09-32-41-0596-PM.jpg
---

 7/30/15 12:00 AM

# Researchers Identify, Validate Potential Serum Biomarker Panel for First-Onset Schizophrenia

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The ability to firmly diagnose schizophrenia before symptoms of the disease arise can help improve patient outcomes by reducing periods of untreated psychosis. In a [paper](http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v5/n7/full/tp201591a.html#tbl1) recently published in *Translational Psychiatry*, Sabine Bahn, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Cambridge and colleagues describe the development of a biomarker test for the identification of individuals at risk of developing schizophrenia based on multiplex immunoassay profiling analysis of 957 serum samples.

The researchers first conducted a meta-analysis of five independent cohorts comprising 331 first-onset drug-naive schizophrenia patients and controls to establish a diagnostic serum biomarker panel, which led to the identification of 26 biomarkers that best discriminated patients and controls. Next, they evaluated the diagnostic performance of the 26-analyte panel using samples from two independent cohorts comprising 93 patients diagnosed with first- or recent-onset schizophrenia and 88 controls, which yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.97 (sensitivity=87%, specificity=97%, accuracy=93%) for schizophrenia detection. Lastly, the researchers tested the predictive performance of the panel before onset of psychosis using two cohorts of 445 pre-onset or at-risk individuals.

According to the authors, “The predictive performance achieved by the panel was excellent for identifying U.S. military personnel (AUC: 0.90 [0.86–0.95]) and help-seeking prodromal individuals (AUC: 0.82 [0.71–0.93]) who developed schizophrenia up to two years after baseline sampling. The performance increased further using the latter cohort following the incorporation of CAARMS (Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental State) positive subscale symptom scores into the model (AUC: 0.90 [0.82–0.98]).”

While the authors acknowledged that further validation studies using larger independent pre-onset sample sets are needed, they wrote, “[t]he biomarker panel presented here represents a validated set of biomarkers from which a definitive signature for diagnosis and prediction of schizophrenia in the clinical setting could be developed. Ultimately, further developments of the biomarker panel could form the basis of a low-cost blood test, which can complement *DSM-5-* or *ICD-10*-based diagnostic approaches.”

To read more about potential biomarkers for psychiatric illness, see the *Psychiatric News* article “[Potential Biomarker for Suicide Vulnerability Identified](http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2014.8b23).”

(Image: kao/Shutterstock.com)

[schizophrenia](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/schizophrenia), [biomarkers](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/biomarkers), [early detection of schizophrenia](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/early-detection-of-schizophrenia)

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