A novel biomarker in first-degree relatives of patients with Alzheimer's disease: Macular pigment optical density.

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to evaluate the level of macular pigment optical density (MPOD) in asymptomatic cognitively healthy first-degree relatives of patients with sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD).

METHODS

One-hundred four subjects who were asymptomatic cognitively healthy first-degree relatives of patients with sporadic AD (study group) and 80 healthy individuals (control group) were enrolled in the study. MPOD measurements of both groups were obtained with the MPSII device (MPSII V, Elektron Eye Technology, Cambridge, UK).

RESULTS

The mean MPOD was 0.46±0.10 in the study group and 0.64±0.14 in the control group. MPOD values were found to be statistically significant when compared between the two groups (P=0.028).

CONCLUSION

MPOD may be a new noninvasive biomarker for early diagnosis, monitoring, and screening of the disease before the onset of clinical symptoms in individuals at high genetic risk of developing AD.