• Arno de Wilde, Juhan Reimand, Charlotte E Teunissen, Marissa Zwan, Albert D Windhorst, Ronald Boellaard, Wiesje M van der Flier, Philip Scheltens, van BerckelBart N MBNMDepartment of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Femke Bouwman, and Rik Ossenkoppele.
• Department of Neurology & Alzheimer Center, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC, P.O. Box 7057, 1007 MB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. arnodewilde@gmail.com.
• Alzheimers Res Ther. 2019 Sep 12; 11 (1): 78.

BackgroundIn vivo, high cerebral amyloid-β load has been associated with (i) reduced concentrations of Aβ42 in cerebrospinal fluid and (ii) increased retention using amyloid-β positron emission tomography. Although these two amyloid-β biomarkers generally show good correspondence, ~ 10-20% of cases have discordant results. To assess the consequences of having discordant amyloid-β PET and CSF biomarkers on clinical features, biomarkers, and longitudinal cognitive trajectories.MethodsWe included 768 patients (194 with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), 127 mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 309 Alzheimer's dementia (AD), and 138 non-AD) who were categorized as concordant-negative (n = 315, 41%), discordant (n = 97, 13%), or concordant-positive (n = 356, 46%) based on CSF and PET results. We compared discordant with both concordant-negative and concordant-positive groups on demographics, clinical syndrome, apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 status, CSF tau, and clinical and neuropsychological progression.ResultsWe found an increase from concordant-negative to discordant to concordant-positive in rates of APOE ε4 (28%, 55%, 70%, Z = - 10.6, P < 0.001), CSF total tau (25%, 45%, 78%, Z = - 13.7, P < 0.001), and phosphorylated tau (28%, 43%, 80%, Z = - 13.7, P < 0.001) positivity. In patients without dementia, linear mixed models showed that Mini-Mental State Examination and memory composite scores did not differ between concordant-negative (β [SE] - 0.13[0.08], P = 0.09) and discordant (β 0.08[0.15], P = 0.15) patients (Pinteraction = 0.19), while these scores declined in concordant-positive (β - 0.75[0.08] patients (Pinteraction < 0.001). In patients with dementia, longitudinal cognitive scores were not affected by amyloid-β biomarker concordance or discordance. Clinical progression rates from SCD to MCI or dementia (P = 0.01) and from MCI to dementia (P = 0.003) increased from concordant-negative to discordant to concordant-positive.ConclusionsDiscordant cases were intermediate to concordant-negative and concordant-positive patients in terms of genetic (APOE ε4) and CSF (tau) markers of AD. While biomarker agreement did not impact cognition in patients with dementia, discordant biomarkers are not benign in patients without dementia given their higher risk of clinical progression.

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