A recently published paper at NIH.gov looked at the sensitivity of the preclinical Alzheimer's cognitive composites which commonly serve as primary outcomes in Alzheimer's disease secondary prevention trials.
The study was was conducted at 143 centers across 14 countries and participants included over three thousand cognitively unimpaired people aged 60-85 years. Participants were categorized as those with amyloid-positive (pathological Aβ levels) and amyloid-negative (non-pathological Aβ levels).
The objective of the study was to evaluate the association between amyloid status and performance on three separate composite endpoints: Preclinical Alzheimer's Cognitive Composite (PACC), PACC+Semantic Fluency (PACC5), and Repeatable Battery for Neuropsychological Status (RBANS).
Controlling for age, sex, and education, the study examined the difference in the various composite endpoints between the two amyloid status groups.
The conclusion was that the cross-sectional relationships between amyloid status and cognition among clinically unimpaired older adults are detectable on multi-domain cognitive composites but are relatively small in magnitude. The difference between the two groups was statistically larger for PACC and marginally larger for PACC5 versus RBANS. However, interpretation of composite sensitivity to amyloid status cross-sectionally cannot be generalized to sensitivity to change over time.
Read the full text at NIH.gov.
