Objective: The 2024 Alzheimer's Association (AA) research diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's Disease (AD) considers fluid biomarkers, including promising blood-based biomarkers for detecting AD. This study aims to identify dementia subtypes and their cognitive and neuroimaging profiles in older adults with dementia in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) using biomarkers and clinical data.
Methods: Forty-five individuals with dementia over 65 years old were evaluated using the Community Screening Instrument for Dementia and the informant-based Alzheimer's Questionnaire. Core AD biomarkers (Aβ42/40 and p-tau181) and non-specific neurodegeneration biomarkers (NfL, GFAP) were measured in blood plasma. Neuroimaging structures were assessed using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Dementia subtypes were determined based on plasma biomarker pathology and vascular markers. Biomarker cutoff scores were identified to optimize sensitivity and specificity. Individuals were stratified into one of four dementia subtypes - AD only, non-AD vascular, non-AD other, or mixed - based on combinations of abnormalities in these markers.
Results: Among the 45 individuals with dementia, mixed dementia had the highest prevalence (42.4%), followed by AD-only (24.4%), non-AD other dementia (22.2%), and non-AD vascular dementia subtypes (11.1%). Both cognitive and neuroimaging profiles aligned poorly with biomarker classifications in the full sample. Cognitive tests varied across dementia subtypes. The cognitive profile of the AD-only and mixed groups suggested relatively low cognitive performance, while the non-AD and other groups had the best scores on average.
Conclusion: Consistent with studies in other settings, our preliminary findings suggest that neurodegenerative plasma biomarkers may help to identify dementia subtypes and provide insight into cognitive and neuroimaging profiles among older adults in the DRC.