• Kasper Katisko, Antti Cajanus, Nadine Huber, Olli Jääskeläinen, Tarja Kokkola, Virve Kärkkäinen, Hannah Rostalski, Paivi Hartikainen, Anne M Koivisto, Sanna Hannonen, Juha-Matti Lehtola, Ville E Korhonen, Seppo Helisalmi, Heli Koivumaa-Honkanen, Sanna-Kaisa Herukka, Anne M Remes, Eino Solje, and Annakaisa Haapasalo.
• Institute of Clinical Medicine - Neurology, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
• J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. 2021 Dec 1; 92 (12): 1305-1312.

BackgroundFrontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and primary psychiatric disorders (PPD) are characterised by overlapping clinical features but different aetiologies. Here, we assessed for the first time the potential of blood glial fibrillar acidic protein (GFAP), marker of astrogliosis, as a discriminative and prognostic tool in FTLD and PPD.MethodsThe levels of GFAP in serum (sGFAP) of patients with FTLD (N=107) and PPD (N=44) and GFAP in whole blood samples (bGFAP) from FTLD (N=10), PPD (N=10) and healthy controls (N=18) were measured. We evaluated whether the sGFAP levels associate with C9orf72 repeat expansion, survival of FTLD and PPD patients, and brain atrophy assessed cross-sectionally and longitudinally by structural T1W MRI. We also examined the correlation between sGFAP and bGFAP levels in a subset of patients.ResultssGFAP and bGFAP levels were elevated in the FTLD group compared with the PPD or control groups. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated an excellent diagnostic performance between FTLD and PPD (the area under the curve (AUC)=0.820, 95% CI 0.745 to 0.896). sGFAP and bGFAP levels showed a strong correlation and elevated sGFAP levels significantly associated with atrophy rate in the temporal cortex and predicted shorter survival time in patients with FTLD. No association with C9orf72 repeat expansion was detected.ConclusionssGFAP enabled differentiation of patients with FTLD and PPD and associated with shorter survival and more severe brain atrophy rate in patients with FTLD. These results suggest that blood-based GFAP represents a minimally invasive and useful biomarker in the differential diagnostics between patients with FTLD and PPD and in evaluating disease progression and astrogliosis in FTLD.© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

24 keywords...

hide…