Home › Research › What the research found › Every row
Every row of the evidence table
One row per finding: what was tested, which way the result went, and how the study was built. The answer by area, and where the studies disagree, are on the main page.
Every row
Filter
Showing 19 of 382 rows. One row per study per exposure: a study that tested two different things appears twice, once for each.
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| Exposure | Question | Direction | Outcome measured | Design | People | Effect size, as the source reported it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blood biomarker test (p-tau217 / amyloid ratio) Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyThe review's own summary points two ways: CSF biomarker tests were mostly cost-effective against cognitive assessment or imaging, while blood biomarker tests showed mixed results; every included study was model-based. |
Cost-effectiveness of CSF and blood biomarker testing for AD diagnosis across nine model-based economic evaluations | systematic review | not stated | not established — systematic review without meta-analysis; the abstract reports no pooled estimate. |
European Journal of Health Economics
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41385058 |
| Blood biomarker test (p-tau217 / amyloid ratio) Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyThe findings point two ways: the p-tau217/Aβ42 ratio tracked AD-related factors (MCI, AD dementia, future progression, age, APOE ε4) more closely than either marker alone and had few intermediate results, but it was also related to kidney function, diabetes and hearing loss, and medical morbidities were most frequent among intermediate classifications. |
Associations of plasma p-tau217, Aβ42/40 and p-tau217/Aβ42 with AD-related factors and with medical comorbidities (kidney function, diabetes, hearing loss) in a health-system biobank | cross-sectional study | 617 | not established — pubmed abstract reports no numeric effect size. |
Annals of neurology
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41447112 |
| Blood biomarker test (p-tau217 / amyloid ratio) Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyDirection is for the test's accuracy against the reference standard; an accuracy result, not a health outcome. Performance varied widely across tests, from 49.3% to 91.4% pooled sensitivity and 61.5% to 96.7% pooled specificity at a single cut-point, with most studies at high risk of bias. |
Pooled sensitivity and specificity of 31 blood-based biomarker tests for Alzheimer pathology in cognitively impaired people | meta-analysis | not stated | the pooled sensitivity ranged from 49.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 41.2-57.4) to 91.4% (95% CI: 86.6-94.6), and the pooled specificity ranged from 61.5% (95% CI: 45.6-75.3) to 96.7% (95% CI: 87.8-99.2) |
Alzheimer's & Dementia
2025 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41193403 |
| Blood biomarkers (GFAP, NfL, p-tau181) for staging and prognosis Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyThe results point different ways: diagnostic confidence rose 1.43 points, but diagnosis changed in only 17.2% and management in 27.7%, below the 30% threshold the investigators set as clinically significant; a non-elevated result reduced amyloid PET use, and patients with elevated results had higher anxiety at 2-3 months. |
Change in clinician diagnostic confidence, diagnosis and management after plasma p-tau181 testing in a memory clinic, and patient wellbeing (SUITABLE) | cohort study | 100 | Clinician diagnostic confidence averaged 1.43 points higher after p-tau181 testing (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.02 to 1.84, p < 0.0001). After testing, 27.7% (95% CI 18.9% to 36.4%, p = 0.31) of patients had a change in management and 17.2% of patients had a change in diagnosis - significantly lower than the 30% threshold (95% CI 9.5% to 24.9%, p = 0.004) |
Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 42254757 |
| Blood biomarkers (GFAP, NfL, p-tau217) for staging and prognosis Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyThe three markers pointed different ways: plasma p-tau217 distinguished amyloid/tau stages, GFAP tracked amyloid-driven tau progression, and NfL was only weakly linked to Alzheimer pathology and, in the authors' words, inadequate as a neuronal injury biomarker for AD. |
Discrimination of amyloid/tau stages, tau progression, hippocampal atrophy and cognitive decline | cohort study | 1,275 | not established — pubmed abstract results reports no numeric estimate. the library had recorded "p-tau217 auc 0.959", which does not appear in the abstract and is not… |
Alzheimer's & Dementia
2025 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41376134 |
| Blood biomarkers (GFAP, NfL, p-tau217) for staging and prognosis Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyThe result points two ways: p-tau181 gave the best AUC for separating AD from controls, frontotemporal dementia and amyloid-negative Lewy body dementia, but that discrimination could not be reproduced when pre-defined cut-offs were applied, so cohort-specific cut-offs were needed. |
Discrimination of AD from controls, frontotemporal dementia and Lewy body dementia by plasma Aβ42/40, p-tau181, GFAP and NfL, and transfer of predefined cut-offs to validation cohorts | cross-sectional study | 1,298 | not established — pubmed abstract results prints no auc or other figure; it states only that p-tau181 showed the best area under the curve and that pre-defined… |
Alzheimer's & Dementia
2025 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 40551285 |
| CSF alpha-synuclein seed amplification assay Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyDirection is for the test's accuracy against the reference standard; an accuracy result, not a health outcome. Results ranged from 55% to 100% sensitivity and 60% to 100% specificity across four laboratories using different protocols, with only fair agreement between them (kappa 0.246). |
Sensitivity, specificity and cross-laboratory agreement for dementia with Lewy bodies | cross-sectional study | 30 | On average, the 4 laboratories achieved 78.8% sensitivity (minimum 55%, maximum 100%), 77.5% specificity (minimum 60%, maximum 100%), and 78.5% accuracy (minimum 57%, maximum 100%) for discriminating DLB from controls ... A fair agreement of SAA results was obtained across the 4 laboratories (average κ = 0.246) |
Neurology
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41604609 |
| Carer psychosocial / skills intervention Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyPeer support reduced distress to behavioural symptoms and increased social support and quality of life immediately after the intervention, but had no effect on depression/anxiety, loneliness, burden or competence, and no outcome was sustained at follow-up. |
Caregiver distress, social support, health-related quality of life, depression/anxiety, loneliness, burden and competence after peer support | meta-analysis | 1,680 | Peer support interventions significantly reduced caregiver distress to behavioral symptoms (standardized mean difference [SMD], -0.28; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.55 to -0.02; p = 0.03), increased social support (SMD, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.06 to 0.67; p = 0.02), and HRQoL (SMD, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.07 to 1.46; p = 0.03) postintervention. However, no significant effects were observed on depression/anxiety, loneliness, caregiving burden, and caregiving competence/knowledge postintervention. None of the outcomes showed sustained effects at follow up |
Archives of gerontology and geriatrics
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41690252 |
| Cost-effectiveness of anti-amyloid antibody Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyThe review splits by drug class: at $100,000 per QALY every study found memantine cost-effective and more than half found the cholinesterase inhibitors so, whereas aducanumab, lecanemab and donanemab were not cost-effective in any study. A value result, not a clinical harm. |
Cost-effectiveness of FDA-approved AD drugs across 23 published analyses (memantine, cholinesterase inhibitors, anti-amyloid antibodies) | systematic review | not stated | At a willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold of $100,000/QALY, all studies found memantine cost-effective, and more than half reported cost-effectiveness for donepezil, rivastigmine, and galantamine. Aducanumab, lecanemab, and donanemab were not cost-effective in any study. Under the WTP threshold of $150,000/QALY, value-based prices for aducanumab, lecanemab, and donanemab were estimated below $5,960, $15,700, and $33,700, respectively |
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41837605 |
| Dementia care management / navigation Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyThe two perspectives disagree: the digitally supported care management system dominated usual care for the public payer (lower costs, marginally more QALYs, 72-79% probability of cost-effectiveness) but cost €331,000 per QALY from a societal perspective (33-35% probability). |
Caregiver QALYs, costs and incremental cost per QALY at six months, from public-payer and societal perspectives | randomised trial | 192 | Caregivers in the intervention group gained QALYs (+0.004 [95% CI -0.003 to 0.012], P value = .225) and had lower costs from the public payer (-378€ [1926-1168], P value = .630), but higher costs from the societal perspective (+1324 [-3634 to 6284], P value = .599). The intervention dominated usual care from the payer perspective, whereas the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was €331 000/QALY from a societal perspective |
Value in Health
2025 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 39922302 |
| Dementia screening / case finding Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyMCI was diagnosed sooner (HR 1.21) but dementia diagnosis barely moved (HR 1.04, 95% CI 1.02-1.06). The outcome is detection, not health. |
Timeliness of first MCI and dementia diagnosis | cohort study | 549,516 | MCI diagnosis HR 1.21 (95% CI 1.16-1.27); dementia diagnosis HR 1.04 (95% CI 1.02-1.06) after an Annual Wellness Visit |
JAMA Network Open
2024 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 39378037 |
| Hospital admission after an emergency department visit Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyAdmission showed no evidence of an effect on 30-day mortality or subsequent inpatient days, but raised 30-day health care spending by $2547. An instrumental-variable estimate for marginal admissions. |
30- and 90-day mortality, inpatient days and health care spending after hospital admission versus discharge | cohort study | 872,085 | There was no evidence that hospital admission was associated with 30-day mortality rate (adjusted risk difference, -2.6 percentage points [pp] [95% CI, -5.2 to 0.1 pp]) or inpatient days (adjusted difference, 0.1 days [CI, -0.2 to 0.5 days]). Hospital admission was associated with higher 30-day health care spending (adjusted difference, $2547 [CI, $1390 to $3703]) |
Annals of internal medicine
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 42258826 |
| Palliative / advance care planning Care, carers and services | Treatment |
Mixed
whyAdvance care planning strongly increased DNR documentation (OR 14.12) but did not change whether residents died in the nursing home (OR 1.62, 95% CI 0.72-3.66). Evidence on other end-of-life outcomes was limited and inconsistent, and no study came from a non-Western setting. |
Do-not-resuscitate documentation; place of death | meta-analysis | not stated | DNR documentation OR 14.12 (95% CI 3.95-50.47); nursing home death OR 1.62 (95% CI 0.72-3.66, not significant) |
Journal of the American Medical Directors Association
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41198038 |
| Ginkgo biloba Diet and supplements | Treatment |
Mixed
whyIn dementia there may be small-to-moderate benefits at six months (low-certainty evidence, I2 88-96%); in MCI ginkgo probably has little or no effect (moderate certainty); in subjective cognitive complaints the effect is very uncertain. Adverse events were similar to placebo. |
Global clinical status, cognition and activities of daily living at 6 months in dementia and in MCI; adverse events | meta-analysis | 10,613 | Dementia Thirteen studies (3288 participants) compared ginkgo with placebo for dementia. At six months, low-certainty evidence suggests that people taking ginkgo may have better global clinical status on a six-point Likert scale (lower is better; MD -0.06, 95% CI -1.00 to -0.20; I² = 88%; 5 studies, 1359 participants), better cognition measured by decreases on a short cognitive performance test (Syndrom-Kurztest; MD -1.86, 95% CI -3.48 to -0.24; I² = 96%; 9 studies, 2801 participants) ... Mild cognitive impairment ... moderate-certainty evidence suggests that ginkgo probably has little to no effect on global clinical status measured on the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (MD -0.03, 95% CI -0.06 to 0.01; 3 studies, 631 participants; I² = 0%) |
The Cochrane database of systematic reviews
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41641880 |
| Anti-amyloid antibody Medicines | Treatment |
Mixed
whyA statistically detectable but very small cognitive effect (ADAS-Cog SMD -0.11) alongside 107 more cases of ARIA-E per 1,000. The reviewers' own conclusion is that removing amyloid does not seem to produce clinically meaningful effects — the sharpest disagreement in this table with how the individual trials were reported. |
ADAS-Cog and CDR-SB at 18 months; ARIA | meta-analysis | 20,342 | ADAS-Cog SMD -0.11 (95% CI -0.16 to -0.06); ARIA-E absolute risk difference +107 per 1,000 |
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41985900 |
| Anti-amyloid antibody Medicines | Treatment |
Mixed
whyCHMP refused the drug, then on re-examination recommended it only for people with one or no APOE4 copy, where the ARIA rates are lower. Benefit on cognition and harm from ARIA in the same document, with the restriction as the regulator's way of balancing them. |
CDR-SB at 18 months and ARIA rates, in the APOE4-restricted group | regulatory decision | 1,521 | "After 18 months of treatment, patients treated with Leqembi had a smaller increase in CDR-SB score than those who received placebo (1.22 versus 1.75)"; "8.9% of those with only one or no copy of ApoE4 experienced ARIA-E, compared with 12.6% of all patients ... 12.9% of patients in the restricted population experienced ARIA-H compared with 16.9% of the broader population"; placebo figures 1.3% and 6.8% |
European Medicines Agency
2024 ⚠ Regulatory decision — not a study no DOI or PMID exists |
| Anti-amyloid antibody Medicines | Treatment |
Mixed
whyBenefits were statistically present but every one fell below the minimum clinically important difference, against a number needed to harm of 9 for ARIA-oedema. Agrees with the Cochrane review and not with the trial reports. |
Cognitive and functional scales against the MCID; ARIA | meta-analysis | 23,202 | CDR-SB mean difference -0.18 (95% CI -0.34 to -0.03), below the MCID; ARIA-oedema NNH 9 |
Annals of Family Medicine
2024 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 38253509 |
| Anti-amyloid antibody Medicines | Treatment |
Mixed
whyApproved on amyloid reduction (surrogate) while reporting higher ARIA rates than placebo; the notice reports no cognitive outcome. |
Amyloid PET (surrogate marker); ARIA rates | regulatory decision | not stated | not established — the library recorded "aria-e in 10% of lecanemab patients vs 1% placebo; aria-h in 6% vs 5%". investors.biogen.com timed out on repeated attempts… |
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (announced via Biogen press release)
2023 ⚠ Regulatory decision — not a study no DOI or PMID exists |
| Anti-amyloid antibody Medicines | Treatment |
Mixed
whyTwo identically designed trials disagreed: EMERGE met its primary endpoint, ENGAGE did not. |
CDR-SB at 78 weeks | phase 3 trial | 3,285 | EMERGE: CDR-SB difference -0.39 vs. placebo (95% CI -0.69 to -0.09; P=.012); ENGAGE: CDR-SB difference +0.03 vs. placebo (95% CI -0.26 to 0.33; P=.833) |
Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease
2022 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 35542991 |