This large review pooled 113 studies (nearly 30,000 people) comparing different forms of blood phosphorylated tau for detecting Alzheimer's pathology. p-tau217 was clearly the best-performing marker, correctly identifying disease pathology about 88% of the time, outperforming other tau variants like p-tau181. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 29,625
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
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None of the three plasma biomarker was associated with NPS at baseline. 5 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 76
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
68/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 68 out of 100.
·
JAMA
·
2024-10-15
This Swedish study of over 1,200 people with memory symptoms found that a blood test combining p-tau217 with an amyloid ratio (the 'Amyloid Probability Score 2') was far more accurate at identifying Alzheimer's disease than doctors' clinical judgment alone. 3 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Participants: 1,213
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
CSF A beta(1-42) was the most sensitive biomarker for AD in the autopsy cohort of CSF samples: receiver operating characteristic area under the curve of 0.913 and sensitivity for AD detection of 96.4%. 4 key findings →
Evidence: moderate
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Original source
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Plasma GFAP discriminated AD dementia from normal cognition (adjusted mean difference = 0.90 standard deviation [SD]) and mild cognitive impairment (adjusted mean difference = 0.72 SD), and demonstrated superior discrimination compared to alternative plasma biomarkers. 4 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Participants: 567
Evidence: moderate
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Original source
Delirium is associated with cognitive decline and subsequent dementia, and rises in plasma total tau (tTau) and neurofilament light (NfL), providing links to Amyloid-Tau-Neurodegeneration (ATN) pathophysiology. 4 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 54
Evidence: moderate
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Original source
NfL demonstrated fair to excellent accuracy in differentiating non-ACS from CU groups (area under the curve [AUC], 0.79 to 0.94). p-tau217 had the highest accuracy for identifying Aβ (AUC 0.94) and tau positron emission tomography status (AUC 0.91). 5 key findings →
Participants: 2,984
Evidence: low
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Original source
Compared to non-carriers, APOE ε4 carriers had lower Aβ42/Aβ40 and greater longitudinal increases in p-tau181 and GFAP; in contrast, the AD-PRS (excluding the APOE region) was associated with greater declines in Aβ42/Aβ40 among APOE ε4 non-carriers. 4 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Levels of CSF Aβ42 decreased in patients with BD who had an episode during follow-up (BD-E) (N = 22) compared to patients without an episode (BD-NE) (N = 25) during follow-up (P = 0.002). 5 key findings →
Design: case-control study
Participants: 62
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
61/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100.
·
Nature Medicine
·
2007-10-14
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Original source
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Aβ-independent factors included hemoglobin and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) for p-tau217 and hemoglobin, eGFR, and triiodothyronine (T3) for GFAP and NfL. 5 key findings →
Participants: 2,935
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
This study reviewed the structure, function, analytical aspects, and age-dependent normal ranges of neurofilaments, providing a comprehensive overview of neurofilament light chain as a marker of axonal injury across various neurological disorders. 2 key findings →
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Original source
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In CU individuals from the development cohort, the combination of p-tau217 and Aβ42/40 significantly improved diagnostic accuracy (AUC: ALZpath 0.937 vs. 0.905, MSD 0.901 vs. 0.861; p < 0.05, DeLong test; 95% CIs) and model fit (AIC /BIC, p < 0.001) compared to p-tau217 alone. 5 key findings →
Participants: 1,545
Evidence: moderate
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Original source
Increased p-tau181 was observed for both ɛ4 carriers and non-carriers close to AD onset, but exclusively for ɛ4 carriers in the early preclinical groups (7- and 13-years pre-AD). 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
54/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 54 out of 100.
·
JAMA Network Open
·
2026-04-29
A total of 322 participants with p-tau217, GFAP, and NfL analyses were stratified into the EOAD or FTD group based on their diagnosis. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 245
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
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NfL had a stronger association than t-tau with clinical scales; t-tau did not hold additional information to that given by NfL (P > 0.05 at all time points). 5 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
In single predictor models, p-tau231 (AUC = 0.87, p = 0.005) and GFAP (AUC = 0.87, p = 0.01) were associated with amyloid positivity, and p-tau231 remained significant in all multi-predictor models (p-values < 0.02). 5 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Phosphorylated tau 181 (p-tau181), phosphorylated tau 231 (p-tau231), neurofilament light (NfL), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) concentrations were unchanged both when stored at +4°C and +18°C. Amyloid-β 40 (Aβ40) and amyloid-β 42 (Aβ42) concentrations were stable for 24 h at +4°C but declined when stored at +18°C for longer than 6 h. This decline did not affect the Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio. 5 key findings →
Participants: 13
Evidence: low
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Original source
CRM-adjusted Aβ42 calibrator concentrations were calculated using the regression equation Y (CRM-adjusted) = 0.89X (calibrators) + 32.6. 5 key findings →
Participants: 766
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
P‐tau181 in CSF and plasma predicted tau accumulation (r > 0.36, P < .001), even in AD‐continuum individuals with normal baseline tau‐PET (A+T–; r > 0.37, P < .05). 4 key findings →
Participants: 163
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Worse overall and local LC-EC integrity, indicated by lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher mean diffusivity (MD), was related to elevated concentrations of plasma phosphorylated tau 181 (p-tau181), p-tau217, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). 5 key findings →
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
50/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 50 out of 100.
·
PloS one
·
2018-09-25
Among the hip fracture patients, 88.6% of the cognitively normal (Clinical Dementia Rating-CDR 0; n = 70) and 98.8% with mild cognitive impairment (CDR 0.5; n = 81) fell in the abnormal biomarker categories by the A/T/N classification. 3 key findings →
Participants: 70
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) neurofilament light (NfL) concentration has reproducibly been shown to reflect neurodegeneration in brain disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). 3 key findings →
Participants: 227
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Evidence supports an important role for beta-amyloid (Abeta) in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). 2 key findings →
Participants: 137
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Higher HOMA-IR was associated with higher sAβPPβ and Aβ42 . 4 key findings →
Participants: 70
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
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 27,380 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.