Clinical validity of delayed recall tests as a gateway biomarker for Alzheimer's disease in the context of a structured 5-phase development framework.
Although Alzheimer's disease criteria promote the use of biomarkers, their maturity in clinical routine still needs to be assessed. In the light of the oncology framework, we conducted a literature review on measures used to assess delayed recall impairment due to medial temporal lobe dysfunction (i.e., free and cued word list recall tests). Ample evidence is available for phases 1 (rationale for use), 2 (discriminative ability), and 3 (early detection ability) for many of the tests in routine use. Evidence about phase 4 (performance in real world) and phase 5 (quantify impact and costs) is yet to come. Administration procedures have been standardized and cutoff scores are well validated in large Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impaired series. Some aspects (e.g., different task formats), however, hamper the comparability of results among different populations and the reproducibility between laboratories. No definite guideline for their use can thus be proposed at the moment. Accordingly, the maturity of such markers is not yet sufficient and requires future investigation to promote the proper use of memory measures in clinical settings.
Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy; Division of Neuroscience, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; Clinical Neuroscience Department, San Raffaele Turro Hospital, Milan, Italy. Electronic address: cerami.chiara@hsr.it.
Chiara
C
Cerami
Dementia Research Center and Department of Neurology, Salpêtrière University Hospital, Paris University, Paris, France.
Bruno
B
Dubois
Laboratory of Neuroimaging & Alzheimer's Epidemiology, IRCCS Centro S. Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy; LANVIE (Laboratory of Neuroimaging of Aging) - Department of Psychiatry, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Marina
M
Boccardi
Memory Clinic, University Center for Medicine of Aging, Felix Platter Hospital, Basel, Switzerland.
Andreas U
AU
Monsch
Leenaards Memory Centre - CHUV, Lausanne University, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Jean Francois
JF
Demonet
Division of Neuroscience, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; NeTS Center, Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori, Pavia, Italy.
Stefano F
SF
Cappa
D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D003463:Cues; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D011939:Mental Recall; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology
D015415:Biomarkers
5-Phases; Alzheimer's disease; Biomarker development; Biomarker-based diagnosis; Cued recall tasks; Delayed recall; Early diagnosis; Episodic memory; Free word list tests; Mild cognitive impairment