Prospective biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Alzheimer's disease (AD) involves a series of pathological changes and some biomarkers were reported to assist in monitoring and predicting disease progression before the emergence of clinical symptoms. We aimed to identify prospective biomarkers and quantify their effect on AD progression.

PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science databases were searched for prospective cohort studies published up to October 2021. Eligible studies were included, and the available data were extracted. Meta-analyses were conducted based on random-effect models. Relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was adopted as the final effect size.

Totally 48,769 articles were identified, of which 84 studies with 20 prospective biomarkers were included in meta-analyses. In the present study, 15 biomarkers were associated with AD progression, comprising CSF Aβ42 (RR=2.49, 95%CI=1.68-3.69), t-tau (RR=1.88, 95%CI=1.49-2.37), p-tau (RR=1.74, 95%CI=1.37-2.21), tau/Aβ42 ratio (RR=5.11, 95%CI=2.01-13.00); peripheral blood Aβ42/Aβ40 (RR=1.26, 95%CI=1.05-1.51), t-tau (RR=1.33, 95%CI=1.08-1.64), NFL (RR=1.75, 95%CI=1.07-2.87); whole, left and right hippocampal volume (HV) (whole: RR=1.65, 95%CI=1.39-1.95; left: RR=2.60, 95%CI=1.02-6.64; right: RR=1.43, 95%CI=1.23-1.66), entorhinal cortex (EC) volume (RR=1.69, 95%CI=1.24-2.30), medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) (RR=1.52, 95%CI=1.33-1.74), 18 F-FDG PET (RR=2.24, 95%CI=1.29-3.89), 11 C-labeled Pittsburgh Compound B PET (11 C-PIB PET) (RR=3.91, 95%CI=1.06-14.41); APOE ε4 (RR=2.16, 1.83-2.55). A total of 70 articles were included in the qualitative review, in which 61 biomarkers were additionally associated with AD progression.

CSF Aβ42, t-tau, p-tau, tau/Aβ42; peripheral blood t-tau, Aβ42/Aβ40, NFL; whole, left and right HV, EC volume, MTA, 18 F-FDG PET, 11 C-PIB PET; APOE ε4 may be promising prospective biomarkers for AD progression.