AMYPAD – Amyloig imaging to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease
És un projecte europeu multicèntric centrat en la neuroimatge de PET-amiloide en pacients sense demència, amb l’objectiu de millorar el diagnòstic i maneig de les fases precoces la Mal. Alzheimer. Ace es va incorporar a AMYPAD l’any 2020 dins del subestudi AMYPAD-PNHS (Prognostic and Natural History Study) amb dades de les cohorts FACEHBI i EPAD.
AMYPAD is a European collaboration aimed at improving the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease through the use of brain positron emission tomography (PET). It comprises 15 European institutions, including research centres, pharmaceutical laboratories and patient associations. The project consists of three studies:
Diagnostic value:
First, the project aims to better understand the impact of amyloid PET imaging on diagnostic thinking and patient management. AMYPAD will scan a large population-based cohort (n = 900) suspected of having Alzheimer’s disease, focusing on individuals with subjective cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment, and atypical or unexplained dementia, in order to determine the utility of β-amyloid imaging in terms of diagnostic confidence, decision trees, changes in diagnosis and patient management plans. The main objective is to measure the impact on patient management of early versus late use of amyloid PET imaging.
Prognostic study:
Second, the project seeks to track and understand the natural history of Alzheimer’s disease, from cognitive normality through subjective cognitive decline to mild cognitive impairment, in order to define the optimal window of opportunity for secondary prevention of Alzheimer’s disease using β-amyloid PET imaging. To better understand the natural history of β-amyloid pathophysiology, AMYPAD will leverage several European networks in close collaboration with ongoing cohorts, such as EPAD, to study the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease longitudinally and multimodally.
Proof-of-concept studies:
Finally, AMYPAD will select individuals for treatment trials aimed at preventing Alzheimer’s disease, ensuring more homogeneous and appropriate enrolment. Clinical follow-up of the combined populations, up to 50%, will be carried out with longitudinal β-amyloid imaging (focusing on individuals with borderline positive scans) to improve understanding of disease pathophysiology and to generate relevant information that facilitates clinical trial inclusion, reduces the required sample size and improves the statistical power of the results. The ultimate goal is to establish predictors of decline to support treatment planning and monitoring.
The project involves 3,100 participants across Europe and plans to perform 6,000 amyloid PET scans. Led by VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, the AMYPAD consortium brings together a world-class team of partners from across Europe to form a pan-European network that includes the most active PET sites. This will ensure effective access to patients and maximise exposure to technical expertise and disease modelling. In addition, AMYPAD will pursue the above objectives in close collaboration with the EPAD project (European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease) of the IMI. AMYPAD is funded by grant number 115952 under the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 programme, a joint initiative of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
