Concentrations of plasma p-tau181 were compared with established CSF and PET biomarkers and longitudinal measurements using Spearman correlation, area under the curve (AUC), and linear regression analyses. 1 key finding →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 1,131
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Whilst cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and positron emission tomography (PET) biomarkers for amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau pathologies are accurate for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), their broad implementation in clinical and trial settings are restricted by high cost and limited accessibility. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 1,000
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
75/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 75 out of 100.
·
Nature medicine
·
2020-03-02
Plasma phosphorylated tau181 (P-tau181) might be increased in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but its usefulness for differential diagnosis and prognosis is unclear. 2 key findings →
Participants: 589
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
The panel cautions users of this guideline that there is significant variability in diagnostic test accuracy and many commercially available BBM tests do not meet these thresholds, especially using a single cutoff. 1 key finding →
Design: systematic-review
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
72/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 72 out of 100.
·
JAMA
·
2024-10-01
The mean age was 74.2 years (SD, 8.3 years), 48% were women, 23% had subjective cognitive decline, 44% had mild cognitive impairment, and 33% had dementia. 2 key findings →
Participants: 307
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
We found that the mass spectrometry-based p-tau217 (p-tau217WashU) exhibited significantly better performance than all other plasma p-tau biomarkers when detecting abnormal Aβ status [area under curve (AUC) = 0.947; Pdiff 0.09), but higher compared with AUC of p-tau231UGOT, p-tau181Lilly, p-tau181UGOT, p-tau181Fuji and p-tau181Splex (AUCrange 0.642-0.813; Pdiff ≤ 0.029). 5 key findings →
Participants: 135
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Plasma p-tau217/Aβ42 has high performance in detecting cerebral AD pathologies, thus offering a promising tool for clinical diagnosis and community screening of AD. 1 key finding →
Design: cross-sectional
Participants: 512
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
71/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 71 out of 100.
·
JAMA neurology
·
2019-09-01
The mean (SD) age of the 842 participants in cohort 1 was 72 (5.6) years, with a range of 59 to 88 years, and 446 (52.5%) were female. 3 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Participants: 842
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
JAMA neurology
·
2020-03-01
Patients in the CBS-AD group had a longer diagnostic latency, relatively benign clinical trajectory, greater cognitive impairment, and higher APOE-ε4 allele frequency than those in the CBS-non-AD group (AUC, 0.80-0.87; P Conclusions and relevance These findings suggest that studies focusing on the PSP-RS subtype are likely to miss a large number of patients with underlying PSP tau pathology. 2 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 76
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Baseline plasma GFAP could detect abnormal CSF Aβ42/40 and CSF Aβ42/T-tau with an AUC of 0.79 (95% CI 0.72-0.86) and 0.80 (95% CI 0.72-0.86), respectively. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
This Position Paper evaluates the strengths and limitations of the International Working Group research diagnostic criteria and proposes advances to improve the diagnostic framework for Alzheimer's disease.
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Plasma p-tau217 and p-tau181 were correlated (r=0·90, p diff =0·31) and in pathology-confirmed Alzheimer's disease (n=15, mean age 73 years [SD 12]) versus pathologically confirmed FTLD (n=68, mean age 67 years [SD 8]; AUC=0·96 [0·92-1·00] for p-tau217, AUC=0·91 [0·82-1·00] for p-tau181; p diff =0·22). 4 key findings →
Participants: 15
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Higher levels of P-tau181 (HR = 1.32 [95% CI: 1.17-1.51]), NfL (HR = 1.19 [95% CI: 1.03-1.36]), and GFAP (HR = 1.36 [95% CI: 1.22-1.52]), and a lower Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio (HR = 0.80 [95% CI: 0.68-0.95]) were associated with an increased risk of progressing to clinically-diagnosed DAT. 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 1,007
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
64/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 64 out of 100.
·
Nature medicine
·
2020-03-02
With the potential development of new disease-modifying Alzheimer's disease (AD) therapies, simple, widely available screening tests are needed to identify which individuals, who are experiencing symptoms of cognitive or behavioral decline, should be further evaluated for initiation of treatment. 2 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
64/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 64 out of 100.
·
JAMA neurology
·
2014-04-01
Identifying a clinical distinction between the invariably lethal prion disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and nonprion rapidly progressive dementias is important and sometimes difficult; thus, reliable tools for diagnosis are in great demand. 4 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 30
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
4 key findings →
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Studies evaluating the diagnostic test accuracy of plasma phosphorylated tau (p-tau) and amyloid beta (Aβ) tests (p-tau217, %p-tau217, p-tau181, p-tau231, and Aβ42/Aβ40) compared to reference standard tests (cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] AD biomarkers, amyloid positron emission tomography [PET], or neuropathology) in individuals with cognitive impairment (mild cognitive impairment or dementia) in specialized care settings were included. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
63/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 63 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2025-06-05
Plasma p-tau217 levels showed a significant increase across advancing AD stages, with all between-group comparisons remaining significant after false discovery rate adjustment ( p p = 0.002) and CSF p-tau181 (β = 3.2, 95% CI 1.4-5.0, p = 0.001). 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 731
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
Various biomarkers are available to support the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases in clinical and research settings. 5 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
61/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100.
·
JAMA neurology
·
2024-12-01
In the new AA diagnostic criteria, AD can be defined clinically as encompassing cognitively normal people having a core 1 AD biomarker. 5 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
61/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2012-02-01
Core CSF changes in Alzheimer disease (AD) are decreased amyloid β(1-42), increased total tau, and increased phospho-tau, probably indicating amyloid plaque accumulation, axonal degeneration, and tangle pathology, respectively. 4 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Participants: 529
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
61/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100.
·
JAMA Neurology
·
2025-09-16
Three survey rounds included 49 to 54 participants that agreed on VasCog-2 diagnostic criteria for preclinical, mild, and major dementia levels of vascular cognitive impairment (under the overarching term VCID). 5 key findings →
Participants: 49
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
61/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100.
·
Nature Medicine
·
2007-10-14
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
The CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 and Aβ42/Aβ38 ratios are significantly better than CSF Aβ42 to detect brain amyloid deposition in prodromal AD and to differentiate AD dementia from non-AD dementias. 5 key findings →
Participants: 1,182
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Phosphorylation of tau protein at threonine 231 (using full-length tau, 441 amino acids, for the numbering scheme) (p-tau(231)) occurs specifically in postmortem brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and can be sensitively detected in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). 4 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
How the 0–100 score works — and why some entries are capped
This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor,
and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a
scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the
difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself,
so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.
- Journal tier up to 10 pts
- Journal's citation record up to 4 pts
- Study design up to 12 pts
- Strength of evidence up to 5 pts
- Peer-review validation up to 10 pts
- How recent up to 5 pts
- Sample size up to 4 pts
- Effect reported up to 3 pts
- Studied in people up to 3 pts
- Randomised / blinded up to 2 pts
- Times cited up to 7 pts
- Citations per year up to 5 pts
- Impact for its field and year up to 6 pts
- Cited by studies here up to 6 pts
- Still being cited up to 4 pts
- Senior author's track record up to 4 pts
- Institution's track record up to 3 pts
- Multi-centre collaboration up to 3 pts
- Indexed in PubMed up to 2 pts
- Free to read up to 2 pts
Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we
could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be
worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science,
Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed
journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the
tier-3 journals apart.
Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a
missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores
zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and
the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed
article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or
a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.
We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not
work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by
that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.
The score is computed from the published data alone and is
reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.
See the whole rubric drawn out →
— four charts covering all 31,380 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap
bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on
stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.