Concordance Between Different Amyloid Immunoassays and Visual Amyloid Positron Emission Tomographic Assessment.

Importance: Visual assessment of amyloid positron emission tomographic (PET) images has been approved by regulatory authorities for clinical use. Several immunoassays have been developed to measure ß-amyloid (Aß) 42 in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The agreement between CSF Aß42 measures from different immunoassays and visual PET readings may influence the use of CSF biomarkers and/or amyloid PET assessment in clinical practice and trials. Objective: To determine the concordance between CSF Aß42 levels measured using 5 different immunoassays and visual amyloid PET analysis. Design, Setting, and Participants: The study included 262 patients with mild cognitive impairment or subjective cognitive decline from the Swedish BioFINDER (Biomarkers for Identifying Neurodegenerative Disorders Early and Reliably) cohort (recruited from September 1, 2010, through December 31, 2014) who had undergone flutemetamol F 18 ([18F]flutemetamol)-labeled PET. Levels of CSF Aß42 were analyzed using the classic INNOTEST and the newer modified INNOTEST, fully automated Lumipulse (FL), EUROIMMUN (EI), and Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) assays. Concentrations of CSF Aß were assessed using an antibody-independent mass spectrometry-based reference measurement procedure. Main Outcomes and Measures: The concordance of CSF Aß42 levels and Aß42:Aß40 and Aß42:tau ratios with visual [18F]flutemetamol PET status. Results: Of 262 participants (mean [SD] age, 70.9 [5.5] years), 108 were women (41.2%) and 154 were men (58.8%). The mass spectrometry-derived Aß42 values showed higher correlations with the modified Aß42-INNOTEST (r = 0.97), Aß42-FL (r = 0.93), Aß42-EI (r = 0.93), and Aß42-MSD (r = 0.95) assays compared with the classic Aß42-INNOTEST assay (r = 0.88; P ≤ .01). The signal in the classic Aß42-INNOTEST assay was partly quenched by recombinant Aß1-40 peptide. However, the classic Aß42-INNOTEST assay showed better concordance with visual [18F]flutemetamol PET status (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC], 0.92) compared with the newer assays (AUCs, 0.87-0.89; P ≤ .01). The accuracies of the newer assays improved significantly when Aß42:Aß40 (AUCs, 0.93-0.95; P ≤ .01), Aß42 to total tau (T-tau) (AUCs, 0.94; P ≤ .05), or Aß42 to phosphorylated tau (P-tau) (AUCs, 0.94-0.95; P ≤ .001) ratios were used. A combination of the Aß42:Aß40 ratio and T-tau or P-tau level did not improve the accuracy compared with the ratio alone. Conclusions and Relevance: Concentrations of CSF Aß42 derived from the new immunoassays (modified INNOTEST, FL, EI, and MSD) may correlate better with the antibody-independent mass spectrometry-based reference measurement procedure and may show improved agreement with visual [18F]flutemetamol PET assessment when using the Aß42:Aß40 or Aß42:tau ratios. These findings suggest the benefit of implementing the CSF Aß42:Aß40 or Aß42:tau ratios as a biomarker of amyloid deposition in clinical practice and trials.

Novel data analysis methods to overcome cut point challenges and enable comprehensive assessment of antidrug binding activity in confirmatory assays.

Immunogenicity assessments in response to drug treatment are commonly performed using a tiered approach strategy. All samples are initially tested in a screening assay followed by the evaluation of the screened positive samples in a confirmatory assay. Percent inhibition of signal intensity by the competing unlabeled drug in a confirmatory assay is typically used to measure the specificity of antidrug binding activity in samples, and has been successfully applied to most immunogenicity assays. However, the percent inhibition approach may not be suitable in cases where broadly distributed and high percent inhibition values are observed in drug-naïve subjects or when persistent operator-dependent differences in assay performance are encountered. Herein, we present the case studies faced with such challenges and provide appropriate solutions by introducing two novel data analysis methods: (1) Reference Delta, and (2) Reference Percent Inhibition, - in which relative-to-baseline signal inhibition is calculated for each sample. These novel methods significantly improve the confirmatory assay's ability to detect the samples positive for antidrug antibodies (ADA), especially when challenges are encountered using the traditional percent inhibition approach. Furthermore, both methods can be implemented in parallel with the percent inhibition method, enabling not only confirmation of ADA specificity, but also providing additional insights about the relevance of this antidrug binding activity to drug treatment.