Progression from Prodromal Alzheimer’s Disease to Mild Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia in the Verubecestat APECS Study: Adjudicating Diagnostic Transitions

BACKGROUND: Delay of progression from prodromal Alzheimer’s disease (AD) to dementia is an important outcome in AD trials. Centralized adjudication is intended to improve the consistency of dementia diagnosis but has not been scrutinized. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate centralized adjudication for determining progression to dementia compared with Site Investigator opinion or change in Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR). METHODS: We used data from the 2-year APECS trial of verubecestat versus placebo in 1,451 prodromal AD participants. Cases were triggered for central adjudication if: 1) the Site Investigator judged the participant had progressed to dementia, or 2) the participant’s CDR sum-of-boxes score increased ≥2 points from baseline. Post-hoc analyses were performed on pooled treatment-group data to compare methods of assessing progression. RESULTS: 581/1,451 (40%) participants had changes triggering adjudication and most (83%) were confirmed as progression to dementia. Only 66% of those who met CDR criteria (regardless of whether they also met Site Investigator criteria) were adjudicated to have progressed to dementia and just 15% of those who met only CDR criteria were adjudicated to have progressed, representing 5% of progressors. In contrast, 99% of those who met Site Investigator criteria (regardless of whether they also met CDR criteria) were adjudicated to have progressed, and the same was true for those who met only Site Investigator criteria. CONCLUSION: A positive Site Investigator opinion is an excellent predictor for a positive adjudication decision regarding onset of dementia. Conversely, sole use of CDR sum-of-boxes change ≥2 is inadequate. The benefit of centralized adjudication appears doubtful.