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Comparative Study
. 2025 Mar 6;15(1):7791.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-90232-8.

Comparison of plasma p-tau217 and p-tau181 in predicting amyloid positivity and prognosis among Korean memory clinic patients

Hyuk Sung Kwon #  1 , Mina Hwang #  1 , Seong-Ho Koh  2 , Seong Hye Choi  3 , Jae-Hong Lee  4 , Hyung-Ji Kim  5 , So-Hee Park  6 , Hyun-Hee Park  1 , Jee Hyang Jeong  7 , Myung Hoon Han  8 , Ji Young Kim  9
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Comparison of plasma p-tau217 and p-tau181 in predicting amyloid positivity and prognosis among Korean memory clinic patients

Hyuk Sung Kwon et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

We investigated plasma phosphorylated tau217 (p-tau217) and p-tau181 efficacy in predicting positive amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) results and cognitive stage transitions. Plasma p-tau217 and p-tau181 were measured in participants who were cognitively unimpaired (CU, n = 121), had mild cognitive impairment (n = 102), or dementia (n = 75) from two independent cohorts (Cohort 1: KBASE-V and Cohort 2: Asan) who underwent amyloid PET. In Cohort 1, plasma p-tau217 (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.938, P < 0.001) outperformed p-tau181 (AUC = 0.857, P < 0.001) in predicting amyloid PET positivity (Pdifference < 0.001). In Cohort 2, p-tau217 (AUC = 0.893, P < 0.001) and p-tau181 (AUC = 0.856, P < 0.001) showed comparably good discrimination for predicting amyloid PET positivity (P = 0.377). P-tau217 (AUC = 0.852, P < 0.001) and p-tau181 (AUC = 0.828, P < 0.001) demonstrated similarly good discriminations for predicting cognitive stage transition (Pdifference = 0.093). Plasma p-tau217 and p-tau181 predicted amyloid PET positivity and cognitive stage transitions well. Plasma p-tau217 might perform better, especially in the early stages.

Keywords: APOE; Alzheimer’s disease; Amyloid beta; Amyloid positron emission tomography; p-tau181; p-tau217.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Consent statement: This study was performed in accordance with the Good Clinical Practice guidelines and the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of the Asan Medical Center (Approval #2018-0614), Inha University Hospital (INHAUH 2015-03-021), and each participating center. All participants or their proxies provided written informed consent.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow sheet of analyzed participants from Cohort 1 (A) and Cohort 2 (B). PET, positron emission tomography; P-tau, phosphorylated tau.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The concentration of p-tau217 and p-tau181 by amyloid-PET status with ROC curves predicting Aβ positivity in Cohort 1 (A) and Cohort 2 (B). P-tau, phosphorylated tau; ROC, receiver operating characteristic; PET, positron emission tomography; Aβ, amyloid beta.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
ROC curve using p-tau217 or p-tau181 for predicting Aβ status using PET. ROC curve analysis of p-tau217 and p-tau181 for predicting Aβ status in the Cohort 1 (A–C) and Cohort 2 (D–F) subgroups. ROC curves for p-tau217 and p-tau181 are compared in the CU (A and D), MCI (B and E), and dementia (C and F) groups. *AUCs of different ROC curves compared using the DeLong method. CU, cognitive unimpaired; MCI, mild cognitive impairment; P-tau, phosphorylated tau; AUC, area under the curve; ROC, receiver operating characteristic; PET, positron emission tomography; Aβ, amyloid beta.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
ROC curve using p-tau217 or p-tau181 for predicting cognitive stage transition. ROC curve analysis of p-tau217 and p-tau181 for discriminating a cognitive stage transition in total (A), CU (B), and MCI (C) patients over 3 years in cohort 1. *AUC of different ROC curves compared using the DeLong method. CU, cognitive unimpaired; MCI, mild cognitive impaired; P-tau, phosphorylated tau; ROC, receiver operating characteristic; ROC, receiver operating characteristic.
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