Abstract: While the differential diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease as distinguished from other types of dementia and the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease at an early stage where neuronal apoptosis has not proceeded yet are important for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, it is difficult to differentially diagnose Alzheimer's disease at early stage via a diagnosis mainly made by questioning by a doctor or a diagnostic technique using phosphorylated tau or amyloid ?-protein as an indicator. Accordingly, the development of a novel diagnostic technique has been desired. Thus, according to the present invention, by focusing on a transferrin having a sugar chain attached thereto, a diagnostic kit, a diagnostic marker, and a detection means for differentially diagnosing the disease condition of Alzheimer's disease at an early stage are provided.

Abstract: [Problems] The differential diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease as distinguished from other type of dementia and the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease at such an early stage where neural cell death has not proceeded yet are important for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. On the other hand, it is difficult to differentially diagnose Alzheimer's disease at an earlier stage by a diagnosis mainly made by questioning by a doctor or a diagnostic technique using phosphorylated tau or amyloid-? protein as an indicator. Thus, the development of a novel diagnostic technique has been demanded. [Means for Solving Problems] An attention is focused on transferrin having a sugar chain attached thereto. Thus, disclosed are a diagnostic kit, a diagnostic marker and a detection method for differentially diagnosing the disease condition of Alzheimer's disease at an earlier stage.