Abstract:

Objective To investigate the distribution of the positive rate of urinary Alzheimer's disease-associated neurofilament protein（AD7c-NTP）of patients with different brain diseases，and to analyze its diagnostic value for Alzheimer's disease（AD）. Methods The urinary AD7c-NTP enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay（ELISA）results of 10 208 patients in the Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University from July 2018 to November 2023 were collected. All the patients were classified into 37 groups based on clinical diagnosis，and the positive rates of urinary AD7c-NTP in each group were compared. Results The overall positive rate of urinary AD7c-NTP was 2.54%（259/10 208）. The positive rates of urinary AD7c-NTP in AD group，dementia group and cognitive impairment group were 3.79%（19/501），2.78%（5/180）and 2.01%（6/298），respectively. The positive rates in the dizziness/headache/syncope/vertigo group（0.81%，3/372） and depressive disorder group（1.91%，27/1 414） were lower than those in AD group（χ²=6.58 and 4.82，respectively，P<0.05）. The hemifacial spasm group exhibited a higher positive rate（20.00%，2/10） compared to dementia and cognitive impairment groups（P<0.05）. No statistical significance in positive rates were observed between the remaining non-dementia disease groups and AD，dementia and cognitive impairment groups （P>0.05）. Conclusions The positive rate of urinary AD7c-NTP of patients with AD，dementia and cognitive impairment is relatively low，and there is no significant difference from the urinary AD7c-NTP positive rate of other non-dementia diseases. The clinical value of urinary AD7c-NTP determination remains to be further clarified.

Key words: Alzheimer's disease-associated neurofilament protein, Alzheimer's disease, Dementia