The following article, titled “Biomarkers for the clinical evaluation of the cognitively impaired elderly: amyloid is not enough,” recently appeared in the journal Imaging in Medicine (June 2012). The authors argue that while incorporating biomarkers for assessing Alzheimer’s disease risk can help in patient prognosis, tests for amyloid, if used in isolation, have potential for harm, as amyloid tests are clinically useful only when evidence suggests progressive cognitive decline or neurodegeneration.

In a future editorial for the AJNR, the authors state that “the combination of MRI, CSF and genetic data, describing in the best possible way the AD preclinical stages, is likely to contribute to the identification of a constellation of AD biomarkers, which may be useful for an early diagnosis, monitoring of disease progression, and assessing treatment efficacy once disease-modifying drugs will become available.”