TAU PET to diagnose Alzheimer's disease

How well do visual reads and quantitative assessments of tau positron emission tomography (PET) predict clinical progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to dementia compared to amyloid-β (Aβ) PET and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)?

In this cohort study (JAMA Neurol. 2024;81(8):845-856) , positivity on quantitative tau PET, but not Aβ PET or MRI, provided a better prediction of conversion from MCI to all-cause dementia when added to a base model including age, sex, education, and Mini-Mental State Examination score, while prediction of Alzheimer disease (AD) dementia was improved with quantitative tau PET as well as tau PET visual reads. The optimal set of neuroimaging biomarkers to predict all-cause and AD dementia included tau PET and MRI measures.

These findings suggest that quantitative tau PET and tau PET visual reads show the greatest promise as a stand-alone prognostic marker for clinical progression to dementia among individuals with MCI, outperforming Aβ PET and MRI.