The pitfalls of biomarker-based classification schemes

The pitfalls of biomarker-based classification schemes

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Letter The pitfalls of biomarker-based classification schemes We read with great interest the elegant work by Pascoal et al. [1] describing a synergistic effect between florbetapir uptake values and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) p-tau levels on the 2-year risk of progression to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) from the Alzheimer Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). This synergistic toxic effect between amyloid (A) and tau (T) has strong biological evidence and has been shown to accelerate cognitive decline and brain atrophy in healthy elderly [2,3]. The authors used two different biomarker modalities for subject classification. The use of CSF biomarker levels alone would have obvious practical advantages, but might influence the results. Classification schemes using AD biomarkers are highly dependent on the standardization and reproducibility of biomarker measures [4]. A and T can be measured through different biomarkers with similar accuracy [5]. These different biomarkers often correlate with each other, but when classifying a subject into normal or abnormal for a given modality, they sometimes have poor agreement [6]. This has been described as a limitation of classification schemes [4]. To address the effect of the classification method on clinical outcomes in the study of Pascoal et al., we compared the use of CSF Ab1–42 levels instead of florbetapir uptake values and the use of CSF t-tau instead of CSF p-tau values in the same group of aMCI subjects from ADNI. We first assessed the correlation between those biomarkers and their agreement for A and T classification. We then compared the prevalence for each category (A2T2, A1T2, A2T1, and A1T1) and their respective risk of progression to AD dementia in the same group of aMCI. We used the florbetapir uptake values and CSF biomarker levels provided by the

1 Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database (adni.loni. usc.edu). As such, the investigators within the ADNI contributed to the design and implementation of ADNI and/or provided data but did not participate in analysis or writing of this report. A complete listing of ADNI investigators can be found at http://adni.loni.usc.edu/wp-content/ uploads/how_to_apply/ADNI_Acknowledgement_List.pdf. *Corresponding author. Tel.: 134-935565986; Fax:134-935565602. E-mail address: [email protected]

ADNI database and we applied the validated thresholds for each biomarker [7]. Both CSF Ab1–42 levels and the florbetapir uptake values and CSF p-tau and t-tau levels were similarly correlated (r 5 20.695 and 0.636, for A and T, respectively). However, the concordance for subject classification was much lower for T (k 5 0.713 and 0.228 for A and T, respectively). Fig. 1 summarizes the risk of progression to AD dementia and the prevalence of each category when using (1) [18F]florbetapir and p-ptau, (2) CSF Ab1–42 and p-tau, and (3) CSF Ab1–42 and t-tau. In all cases, we replicated the synergistic effects between A and T. However, the group of isolated amyloid pathology (A1T2) emerged as an intermediate risk group (progression rates of 5%–7.1% for the A1T2 group vs. 0% to 1.6% for the A2T2 group at 2 years). These results are in agreement with the study from Vos et al. [8] that described an intermediate progression risk for the isolated amyloid pathology group in a large multicentric MCI cohort after a follow up of 2.7 years. The most important difference was, nonetheless, the dramatic change in the prevalence of the different categories. These discrepancies emerged when changing the A biomarker but were more obvious when changing the T biomarker. This was mainly because of the low agreement between t-tau and p-tau, regardless the high correlation between both measures. When using t-tau, the A1T1 group was markedly reduced in size (252%) in favor of the A1T2 (1490%) and A2T2 (198%) groups. Thus, the proportion of subjects in the higher risk category (A1T1) was doubled when using p-tau (n 5 158, 50.3%) than when using t-tau (n 5 75, 24.5%). This effect has already been shown in healthy control classification in ADNI [9]. Despite the fact that p-tau is often proposed as more specific for AD [4], a higher diagnostic accuracy has been reported for t-tau than for p-tau in large pathologyproven cohorts (AUC 5 0.831 and 0.753 for t-tau and p-tau, respectively) [7] and in large meta-analysis [10]. Q3 It should be noted that t-tau and p-tau values are tightly correlated with each other in the context of AD [11], and that both biomarkers show a good correlation with neurofibrillary tangle load in pathologically proven cohorts [12]. In fact, t-tau has showed even higher correlation rates with the pathologic neurofibrillary load than p-tau (r 5 0.550 and 0.466 for t-tau and p-tau, respectively)

1552-5260/Ó 2017 the Alzheimer’s Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Fig. 1. Subject classification into the different categories and their respective progression rates from aMCI to AD dementia for more than 2 years in the ADNI cohort when (A) using florbetapir and p-tau levels (n 5 314), (B) using CSF Ab1–42 and CSF p-tau levels (n 5 314), and (C) using CSF Ab1–42 and CSF t-tau levels (n 5 306). All groups were compared with the A2T2 group, which served as the reference group. *P ,.05 (chi-square test); tau, P ,.1 (chi-square test). Q5 Abbreviations: aMCI, amnestic mild cognitive impairment; A, amyloid; AD, Alzheimer’s disease; ADNI, Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative; Ab1–42, b-amyloid1–42; CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; FBP, [18F]florbetapir; p-tau, p181-tau; T, tau.

[12]. T-tau levels can be found increased in other neurogenerative and nonneurodegenerative conditions, limiting its specificity. However, p-tau levels have also been described to be altered in other neurodegenerative

and nonneurodegenerative conditions (i.e., amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or herpetic encephalitis) [11,13]. In conclusion, our results support the synergistic effect of A and T on progression to AD dementia in aMCI, but they

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232 also highlight the importance of the selection of biomarkers 233 and the need for precise cutoff definitions to build operative 234 and robust classification schemes. Researchers and clinicians 235 should be extremely cautious when interpreting studies to es236 timate the individual risk for progression in their cohorts. 237 This might be especially important if they use a different 238 biomarker modality to assess A or T (or neurodegeneration) 239 or if they use different thresholds. If these classifications are 240 not robust, we might ascribe incorrect progression risks to a 241 given individual and find different prevalence for each 242 category among cohorts, which has important implications 243 244 both in clinical practice and clinical trials. 245 246 Acknowledgments 247 Funding: This work was supported by research grants from 248 249 the Carlos III Institute of Health, Spain (grants PI11/02425 250 and PI14/01126 to J.F., grants PI10/1878 and PI13/01532 251 to R.B., and grants PI11/03035 and PI14/1561 to A.L.) 252 jointly funded by Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional 253 (FEDER), Uni on Europea, “Una manera de hacer Europa,” 254 and CIBERNED (Program 1, Alzheimer’s Disease and other 255 dementias to A.L.). This work has also been supported by a 256 “Marat o TV3” grant (20141210 to J.F.) and by Generalitat 257 de Catalunya (2014SGR-0235). I.I.-G. is supported by the 258 i-PFIS grant (IF15/00060) from the FIS, Instituto de Salud 259 Carlos III. 260 261 Disclosure: The authors report no disclosures relevant to this 262 manuscript. 263 Ignacio Illan-Gala 264Q6 Eduard Vilaplana 265 Jordi Pegueroles 266 Victor Montal 267 Daniel Alcolea 268 269 Rafael Blesa 270 Alberto Lleo 271 Memory Unit 272 Department of Neurology 273 Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau 274 Biomedical Research Institute Sant Pau 275 Universitat Aut onoma de Barcelona 276 Barcelona, Spain Q1 277 Centro de Investigaci o n Biom e dica en Red de Enfermedades 278 Neurodegenerativas, CIBERNED, Spain 279 Q2 280 281 Juan Fortea* 282 Memory Unit 283 Department of Neurology 284 Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau 285 Biomedical Research Institute Sant Pau 286 287 288 289 290 291 292

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Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Barcelona, Spain Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red de Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas CIBERNED, Spain Barcelona Down Medical Center, Fundacio Catalana de Sındrome de Down, Barcelona, Spain For the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative1

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jalz.2017.06.002

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