Plasma p-tau217 in Alzheimer's disease: Lumipulse and ALZpath SIMOA head-to-head comparison

Plasma phosphorylated-tau217 (p-tau217) has been shown to be one of the most accurate diagnostic markers for Alzheimer's disease. No studies have compared the clinical performance of p-tau217 as assessed by the fully automated Lumipulse and single molecule array (SIMOA) AlZpath p-tau217. The study included 392 participants, 162 with Alzheimer's disease, 70 with other neurodegenerative diseases with CSF biomarkers and 160 healthy controls. Plasma p-tau217 levels were measured using the Lumipulse and ALZpath SIMOA assays. The ability of p-tau217 assessed by both techniques to discriminate Alzheimer's disease from other neurodegenerative diseases and controls was investigated using receiver operating characteristic analyses. The p-tau217 levels measured by the two techniques demonstrated a strong correlation, showing a consistent relationship with CSF p-tau181 levels. In head-to-head comparison, Lumipulse and SIMOA showed similar diagnostic accuracy for differentiating Alzheimer's disease from other neurodegenerative diseases [area under the curve (AUC) 0.952, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.927-0.978 versus 0.955, 95% CI 0.928-0.982, respectively] and healthy controls (AUC 0.938, 95% CI 0.910-0.966 and 0.937, 95% CI 0.907-0.967 for both assays). This study demonstrated the high precision and diagnostic accuracy of p-tau217 for the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease using fully automated or semi-automated techniques.