Application of an amyloid and tau classification system in subcortical vascular cognitive impairment patients

To apply an AT (Aβ/tau) classification system to subcortical vascular cognitive impairment (SVCI) patients following recently developed biomarker-based criteria of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and to investigate its clinical significance.

We recruited 60 SVCI patients who underwent the neuropsychological tests, brain MRI, and ¹⁸F-florbetaben and ¹⁸F-AV1451 PET at baseline. As a control group, we further recruited 27 patients with AD cognitive impairment (ADCI; eight Aβ PET-positive AD dementia and 19 amnestic mild cognitive impairment). ADCI and SVCI patients were classified as having normal or abnormal Aβ (A-/A+) and tau (T-/T+) based on PET results. Across the three SVCI groups (A-, A+T-, and A+T+SVCI), we compared longitudinal changes in cognition, hippocampal volume (HV), and cortical thickness using linear mixed models.

Among SVCI patients, 33 (55%), 20 (33.3%), and seven (11.7%) patients were A-, A+T-, and A+T+, respectively. The frequency of T+ was lower in A+SVCI (7/27, 25.9%) than in A+ADCI (14/20, 70.0%, p = 0.003) which suggested that cerebral small vessel disease affected cognitive impairments independently of A+. A+T-SVCI had steeper cognitive decline than A-SVCI. A+T+SVCI also showed steeper cognitive decline than A+T-SVCI. Also, A+T-SVCI had steeper decrease in HV than A-SVCI, while cortical thinning did not differ between the two groups. A+T+SVCI had greater global cortical thinning compared with A+T-SVCI, while declines in HV did not differ between the two groups.

This study showed that the AT system successfully characterized SVCI patients, suggesting that the AT system may be usefully applied in a research framework for clinically diagnosed SVCI.