Mayo Clinic Publishes Tool to Estimate Alzheimer’s Risk Years Before Symptoms

Overview

• The prediction model combines age, sex, APOE genotype and amyloid levels on PET scans to estimate a person’s likelihood of developing MCI or dementia over 10 years and across a lifetime.
• Amyloid burden measured by PET had the largest effect on lifetime risk for both MCI and dementia among all factors tested.
• Analysis of 5,858 participants in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging found higher lifetime risk for women and for carriers of the APOE ε4 variant.
• Ongoing record-based follow-up showed dementia incidence was about twice as high among participants who discontinued active study visits, bolstering community risk estimates.
• The calculator remains a research instrument, with plans to evaluate blood-based biomarkers to make testing more accessible.