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Alzheimer blood biomarkers: practical guidelines for study design, sample collection, processing, biobanking, measurement and result reporting
Zeng X, Chen Y, Sehrawat A, Lee J, Lafferty TK, Kofler J, Berman SB, Sweet RA et al.. Molecular neurodegeneration, 2024-05-15
Topic: Amyloid, tau and blood-test diagnosis
Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, remains challenging to understand and treat despite decades of research and clinical investigation. This might be partly due to a lack of widely available and cost-effective modalities for diagnosis and prognosis. Recently, the blood-based AD biomarker field has seen significant progress driven by technological advances, mainly improved analytical sensitivity and precision of the assays and measurement platforms. Several blood-based biomarkers have shown high potential for accurately detecting AD pathophysiology. As a result, there has been considerable interest in applying these biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis, as surrogate metrics to investigate the impact of various covariates on AD pathophysiology and to accelerate AD therapeutic trials and monitor treatment effects. However, the lack of standardization of how blood samples and collected, processed, stored analyzed and reported can affect the reproducibility of these biomarker measurements, potentially hindering progress toward their widespread use in clinical and research settings. To help address these issues, we provide fundamental guidelines developed according to recent research findings on the impact of sample handling on blood biomarker measurements. These guidelines cover important considerations including study design, blood collection, blood processing, biobanking, biomarker measurement, and result reporting. Furthermore, the proposed guidelines include best practices for appropriate blood handling procedures for genetic and ribonucleic acid analyses. While we focus on the key blood-based AD biomarkers for the AT(N) criteria (e.g., amyloid-beta [Aβ]40, Aβ42, Aβ42/40 ratio, total-tau, phosphorylated-tau, neurofilament light chain, brain-derived tau and glial fibrillary acidic protein), we anticipate that these guidelines will generally be applicable to other types of blood biomarkers. We also anticipate that these guidelines will assist investigators in planning and executing biomarker research, enabling harmonization of sample handling to improve comparability across studies.
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APA 7th
Zeng, X., Chen, Y., Sehrawat, A., Lee, J., Lafferty, T. K., Kofler, J., et al. (2024). Alzheimer blood biomarkers: practical guidelines for study design, sample collection, processing, biobanking, measurement and result reporting. Molecular neurodegeneration. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13024-024-00711-1
Vancouver
Zeng X, Chen Y, Sehrawat A, Lee J, Lafferty TK, Kofler J, et al. Alzheimer blood biomarkers: practical guidelines for study design, sample collection, processing, biobanking, measurement and result reporting. Molecular neurodegeneration. 2024. doi:10.1186/s13024-024-00711-1. PMID: 38750570.
BibTeX
@article{zeng2024-38750570,
author = {Zeng, X. and Chen, Y. and Sehrawat, A. and Lee, J. and Lafferty, T. K. and Kofler, J. and Berman, S. B. and Sweet, R. A. and others},
title = {{Alzheimer blood biomarkers: practical guidelines for study design, sample collection, processing, biobanking, measurement and result reporting}},
journal = {Molecular neurodegeneration},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1186/s13024-024-00711-1},
pmid = {38750570},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1186/s13024-024-00711-1}
}
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Key findings
- Recently, the blood-based AD biomarker field has seen significant progress driven by technological advances, mainly improved analytical sensitivity and precision of the assays and measurement platforms.
- As a result, there has been considerable interest in applying these biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis, as surrogate metrics to investigate the impact of various covariates on AD pathophysiology and to accelerate AD therapeutic trials and monitor treatment effects.
- These guidelines cover important considerations including study design, blood collection, blood processing, biobanking, biomarker measurement, and result reporting.
Why it matters
These guidelines aim to standardize how blood samples are collected, processed, stored, and measured for Alzheimer's blood biomarkers, because lack of standardization can affect reproducibility. Better standardization could help support the use of these biomarkers in diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring treatment effects in research and clinical settings.
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Study details
- Evidence strengthLow
How this study scored 50/100
Published in a peer-reviewed journal. Scored zero for study design, sample size, effect reported, studied in people and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 7 / 10 | Tier 3 — peer-reviewed journal (Molecular neurodegeneration) |
| Journal's citation record | 2 / 4 | Molecular Neurodegeneration: journal h-index 164 (OpenAlex, 2026-10-29) |
| Study design | 0 / 12 | No study design recorded — scores zero, not guessed (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Strength of evidence | 1 / 5 | Rated “low” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 10 / 10 | Peer-reviewed. Published as an article in a named peer-reviewed journal. |
| How recent | 4 / 5 | 2024 — within 3 year(s) of the newest study here |
| Sample size | 0 / 4 | Participant count not stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Effect reported | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Studied in people | 0 / 3 | Not stated whether this was studied in people — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | 4 / 7 | Cited 66 times (OpenAlex, 2026-10-10) |
| Citations per year | 3 / 5 | 16.5 citations a year over 4 year(s) since 2024 |
| Impact for its field and year | 4 / 6 | Cited 18.0× the average for papers of its field and year (OpenAlex FWCI) |
| Cited by studies here | 1 / 6 | Cited by 1 other studies in this library |
| Still being cited | 3 / 4 | Cited 66 times in 2024–2026 (2026 still in progress; OpenAlex) |
| Senior author's track record | 3 / 4 | Last-listed author Thomas K. Karikari: h-index 66 (OpenAlex, whole career) |
| Institution's track record | 2 / 3 | University College London: institution h-index 2,029 (OpenAlex) |
| Multi-centre collaboration | 2 / 3 | OpenAlex lists 8 institution(s) in 3 countries |
| Indexed in PubMed | 2 / 2 | Indexed in PubMed (PMID 38750570) |
| Free to read | 2 / 2 | Free to read |
| Total | 50 / 100 | — |
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