Lewy body pathology exacerbates brain hypometabolism and cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease

Identifying concomitant Lewy body (LB) pathology through seed amplification assays (SAA) might enhance the diagnostic and prognostic work-up of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in clinical practice and trials. This study examined whether LB pathology exacerbates AD-related disease progression in 795 cognitively impaired individuals (Mild Cognitive Impairment and dementia) from the longitudinal multi-center observational ADNI cohort. Participants were on average 75 years of age (SD = 7.89), 40.8% were female, 184 (23.1%) had no biomarker evidence of AD/LB pathology, 39 (4.9%) had isolated LB pathology (AD-LB+), 395 (49.7%) had only AD pathology (AD+LB-), and 177 (22.3%) had both pathologies (AD+LB+). The AD+LB+ group showed worst baseline performance for most cognitive outcomes and compared to the AD+LB- group faster global cognitive decline and more cortical hypometabolism, particularly in posterior brain regions. Neuropathological examination (n = 61) showed high sensitivity (26/27, 96.3%) and specificity (27/28, 96.4%) of the SAA-test. We showed that co-existing LB-positivity exacerbates cognitive decline and cortical brain hypometabolism in AD. In vivo LB pathology detection could enhance prognostic evaluations in clinical practice and could have implications for clinical AD trial design.