Do NIA-AA criteria distinguish Alzheimer's disease from frontotemporal dementia?

JM Harris, JC Thompson, C Gall, AM Richardson, D Neary, D DuPlessis, P Pal, David M Mann, JS Snowden, M. Jones

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Clinical criteria are important for improving diagnostic accuracy and ensuring comparability of patient cohorts in research studies. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to assess the National Institute on Aging and Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA) criteria for Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia in AD and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). METHODS: Two hundred twelve consecutive patients with pathologically confirmed AD or FTLD who were clinically assessed in a specialist cognitive unit were identified. Fifty-five patients were excluded predominantly because of insufficient clinical information. Anonymized clinical data were rated against the NIA-AA criteria by raters who were blinded to clinical and pathologic diagnosis. RESULTS: The NIA-AA AD dementia criteria had a sensitivity of 65.6% for probable and 79.5% for possible AD and a specificity of 95.2% and 94.0% for probable and possible, respectively. CONCLUSION: In patients with FTLD and predominantly early-onset AD, the NIA-AA AD dementia criteria have high specificity but lower sensitivity. The high specificity is due to the broad exclusion criteria.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)207-215
Number of pages9
JournalAlzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association
Volume11
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Keywords

  • Alzheimer's disease
  • Criteria
  • Dementia
  • Diagnosis
  • Neuropathology
  • Pathology

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