Currently, the AMYPAD DPMS is the largest European study implementing amyloid-PET in clinical practice. A total of 844 patients were randomized out of 900 originally planned. The study recruited 245 people with Subjective Cognitive Decline, 342 with Mild Cognitive Impairment and 258 with dementia. Similarly, significant work has been put into finalizing the PNHS by the engagement of additional sites and Parent Cohorts. By October 2022, 1,419 participants were prospectively recruited. This study has involved collaborations among 8 European countries, 17 sites, and 11 parent cohorts: EPAD LCS, EMIF-AD (60++ and 90+), ALFA+, FACEHBI, FPACK, UCL 2010-412, Microbiota, AMYPAD DPMS (VUMC), H70, and Delcode. Consequently, longitudinal, integrated, and harmonized data of more than 1600 unique subjects is available through the ADDI workbench.
In parallel, technical and operational aspects have been established and optimized. Some critical aspects are the harmonization of data across radiotracers and scanners at the different sites, their qualifications, and the optimization of data accuracy for high-quality standard of results. From the previous period, a dedicated team developed pipelines for the harmonization of PET quantification to ensure robust and valid findings. In addition, a strong focus has been put into developing open-source imaging processing pipelines, which already have been and will be provided to the community.
For the post-IMI period several, actions have been taken on dissemination and exploitation of results:
- The research network and expert knowledge gathered from the Consortium will continue with monthly scientific meetings among WP2, WP3, WP4, and WP5.
- AMYPAD governance is working in an ‘Aims and Rules’ document that provides an overall guidance and exploitation of AMYPAD assets including datasets, software’s, knowledge base, scientific collaboration, and network.
- The standardized PET methodology software’s are open-access available on Github.
- Dataset (harmonized data, cognitive domains, scans, etc) will be maintained. Thanks to a 5-year partnership between the AMYPAD consortium and ADDI, the PNHS dataset will become available to the research community beyond the project duration, with the first public release planned by the end of Q1 2023.
- Integration and enhancement of PNHS dataset. Additional cohorts and biomarkers/variables readily available in the current parent cohorts will be integrated to enhance the value of the data-set for disease modelling effort.
