Design and application of a customizable relational DataBase to assess clinicopathological correlations and concomitant pathology in neurodegenerative diseases.

The diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases is made complex by the heterogenous phenotype of the patients and the regular occurrence of concomitant pathology. Studying clinicopathological correlations in autopsy series is a central approach to improve pathological prediction in clinical practice. However, such method requires a wealth of information, and the use of standard spreadsheet software is hardly suitable. To overcome this constraint, we designed a customizable and freely available neuropathology form with 456 data entry fields driven by an open-source DataBase Management Systems (DBMS) using Structured Query Language (SQL). This approach allowed us to optimize the compilation of clinical and pathological data from our brain collection (264 autopsied patients, 22,885 data points). Information was then easily retrieved using general and specific queries, facilitating the analysis of demographics, clinicopathological correlations, and incidental and concomitant proteinopathies. Tau, amyloid-ß and α-synuclein incidental pathology was observed in respectively 78.1%, 42.8%, and 10.7% of all the patients. These proportions increased with age, reaching 100% for Tau pathology after 80. Concomitant proteinopathy was observed in 46.4% of the patients diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases and prion disease. We observed a particularly high rate of co-pathology in patients with Dementia with Lewy bodies (81.3% of associated Tau and amyloid-ß pathology) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (68.4% of associated Tau pathology). Finally, we used specific queries to identify old cases that could meet newly defined neuropathological criteria and revised the diagnosis of a 90-year-old patient to LATE Stage 2. Increasing our understanding of clinicopathological correlations in neurodegenerative diseases is crucial given the implications in clinical diagnosis, biomarker identification and targeted therapies assessment. The precise characterization of clinical and pathological data of autopsy series remains a central approach but the large amount of generated data should encourage a more systematic use of DBMS.

Relative exchangeable copper: A valuable tool for the diagnosis of Wilson disease.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Measuring of the relative exchangeable copper seems to be a promising tool for the diagnosis of Wilson disease. The aim of our study is to determine the performance of REC for the diagnosis of Wilson disease in a population of patients with chronic liver diseases. METHODS: Measuring of exchangeable serum copper levels and relative exchangeable copper was performed in a group of Wilson disease patients at diagnosis or at clinical deterioration because of non-compliance (group 1, n=9), a group of stable WD patients (group 2, n=40), and two groups of patients (adult and paediatric) followed for non-Wilsonian liver diseases (group 3, n=103 and group 4, n=49 respectively). RESULTS: Exchangeable serum copper (N: 0.6-1.1 µmol/L) was significantly higher in group 1 (mean 2.2±0.7 µmol/L) compared to the other three groups: group 2=0.9±0.4 µmol/L, group 3=1.2±0.4 µmol/L, group 4=1.1±0.3 µmol/L (P<0.05). Relative exchangeable copper was significantly higher in Wilson disease patients group 1 and 2 (mean 52.6% and 43.8%) compared to patients suffering from other liver diseases (mean 7.1% and 5.9%) (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms that the determination of relative exchangeable copper is a highly valuable tool for the diagnosis of Wilson disease.