A global effort is underway to identify biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease that will improve early diagnosis. Differential diagnosis remains a challenge for clinicians, especially early in the symptomatic phase of the disease. Biomarkers, both fluid and imaging measures, are increasingly viewed as helpful diagnostic tools and have been incorporated into diagnostic criteria for AD (Schott et al., 2015). In addition, biomarkers may be used to monitor disease progression, enrich or stratify subjects in clinical trials, and to assess the efficacy of therapeutic interventions.

This database was developed to organize the large and rapidly expanding literature on fluid biomarkers of AD. The goal is to provide a snapshot of the current state of knowledge as derived from published cross-sectional cohort studies.

The Team

This project is a collaborative effort between Alzforum and Henrik Zetterberg and colleagues at the Sahlgrenska Academy and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. It was conceptualized jointly and designed by Alzforum. Literature searches and curation were performed by Bob Olsson with assistance from members of the department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, including Ulf Andreasson, Maria Bjerke, Kaj Blennow, Mikko Hölttä, Ronald Lautner, Erik Portelius, Christoffer Rosén and Annika Öhrfelt. Meta-analysis was conducted by Max Petzold and meta-analysis results were interpreted by Henrik Zetterberg. For version 3.0, literature searches and curation were performed by Alzforum team, and meta-analysis was conducted using a locally installed R server. 

We thank the many scientists who have assisted in the development of this database by providing feedback throughout the process. In addition, we are indebted to the many scientists who responded to our requests for data in a format other than how it was originally published.

NEXT: Methods