Robustness of CSF Aβ42/40 and Aβ42/P-tau181 measured using fully automated immunoassays to detect AD-related outcomes

IntroductionThis study investigated the comparability of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cutoffs for Elecsys immunoassays for amyloid beta (A beta)42/A beta 40 or A beta 42/phosphorylated tau (p-tau)181 and the effects of measurement variability when predicting Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related outcomes (i.e., A beta-positron emission tomography [PET] visual read and AD neuropathology). MethodsWe studied 750 participants (BioFINDER study, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative [ADNI], and University of California San Francisco [UCSF]). Youden's index was used to identify cutoffs and to calculate accuracy (A beta-PET visual read as outcome). Using longitudinal variability in A beta-negative controls, we identified a gray zone around cut-points where the risk of an inconsistent predicted outcome was >5%. ResultsFor A beta 42/A beta 40, cutoffs across cohorts were <0.059 (BioFINDER), <0.057 (ADNI), and <0.058 (UCSF). For A beta 42/p-tau181, cutoffs were <41.90 (BioFINDER), <39.20 (ADNI), and <46.02 (UCSF). Accuracy was approximate to 90% for both A beta 42/A beta 40 and A beta 42/p-tau181 using these cutoffs. Using A beta-PET as an outcome, 8.7% of participants fell within a gray zone interval for A beta 42/A beta 40, compared to 4.5% for A beta 42/p-tau181. Similar findings were observed using a measure of overall AD neuropathologic change (7.7% vs. 3.3%). In a subset with CSF and plasma A beta 42/40, the number of individuals within the gray zone was approximate to 1.5 to 3 times greater when using plasma A beta 42/40. DiscussionCSF A beta 42/p-tau181 was more robust to the effects of measurement variability, suggesting that it may be the preferred Elecsys-based measure in clinical practice and trials.

Automated summary

This study examined the comparability of cutoffs for Elecsys immunoassays for different measurements in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in predicting Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related outcomes. The results showed that CSF A beta 42/p-tau181 was more robust to measurement variability and may be the preferred measure in clinical practice and trials. The findings also indicated that the use of plasma A beta 42/40 led to a greater number of individuals falling within the gray zone.