Genetic testing of common and rare variants in dementia patients from a memory clinic: Dementia-related genetic testing in memory clinic

TL;DR

This study explores how combining genetic risk factors can help diagnose Alzheimer's disease in memory clinic patients.

Contribution

The study evaluates a combined genetic score integrating common and rare variants for improved Alzheimer's diagnosis.

Findings

A combined genetic score increased the likelihood of an Alzheimer's diagnosis by 7 times in high-risk patients.

APOE genotypes and a polygenic risk score were independently associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Genetic testing altered the diagnosis in over half of patients with causal pathogenic variants.

Abstract

Many types of dementia have high heritability, which creates opportunities for DNA diagnostics. Clinicians sporadically test for causal genetic variants. However, in addition to causal genetic mutations, an increasing number of both common and rare risk factors are being identified, especially for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Here, we describe and evaluate diagnostic performance of combining genetic risk factors for AD to assist memory clinic clinicians.

A retrospective analysis of 998 consecutive patients (mean age 62.1, 40.3% females, 63.3% dementia) was conducted over 2.5 years in a Dutch memory clinic. The patients underwent a complete genetic risk assessment, including whole-exome sequencing and array genotyping. We examined known pathogenic genetic variants for all dementia types and their correlation with clinical diagnoses. We evaluated a combined genetic score (GS) based on all genetic risk factors for AD - namely APOE genotypes, candidate risk rare variants in 11 genes, and a polygenic risk score (PRS) based on 82 common variants. Then, we analyzed the discriminatory characteristics of the GS.

Causal pathogenic variants were rare, present in 3.4% of individuals, but genetic testing would have altered the diagnosis in over half of the carriers. Candidate rare risk variants were more common, identified in 31.6% of patients. Both APOE genotypes and the PRS were independently associated with AD, and gene-specific interaction was found between TREM2 and AD-PRS (β = -1.16, p = 0.015). Patients with a high GS were 7 times more likely receive an AD diagnosis compared to those with a low GS (p = 2.5E-07).

Overall, this study highlights the potential of integrating genetic risk factors into clinical practice to enhance AD diagnosis, though the improvement in diagnostic accuracy was moderate. The findings underscore the importance of genetic testing in diagnosis while also recognizing its limitations.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13195-025-01854-z.

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