Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a severe neurodegenerative disease. Cerebrovascular 
changes often accompany AD-related pathology. Despite a considerable progress in 
the diagnostic accuracy of AD, no blood biomarkers have been established so far. 
The aim of the present study was to search for changes in plasma levels of 27 
vascular-related proteins of healthy controls, patients with mild cognitive 
impairment (MCI) and AD. In a sample of 80 participants we showed that out of 
these 27 proteins, six proteins were slightly changed (up to 1.5×) in AD 
(alpha2-macroglobulin, apolipoprotein-A1, plasminogen activator inhibitor, RAGE, 
Tissue Inhibitors of Metalloproteinases-1 and Trombospondin-2) and one marker 
(serum amyloid A) was enhanced up to 6× but with a very high variance. However, 
N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) was significantly enhanced 
both in MCI and AD patients (1.9×). In a second analysis of a sample of 110 
subjects including younger healthy controls, we confirmed that NT-proBNP has the 
potential to be a stable candidate protein for both diagnosis and AD disease 
progression.