Diagnostic performance of light reflex pupillometry in Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Easily applied diagnostic tools such as digital biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) are urgently needed due to the recent approval of disease‐modifying therapies. We aimed to determine the diagnostic performance of hand‐held, quantitative light reflex pupillometry (qLRP) in patients with AD in a proof‐of‐concept, cross‐sectional study. Participants underwent qLRP at a university memory clinic from August 2022 to October 2023. We fitted multivariable logistic regression models with qLRP, sex, and age as predictors evaluated with area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC). In total, 107 patients with AD, 44 patients with mixed AD and vascular cognitive dysfunction (VCD), 53 patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and 50 healthy controls (HCs) were included. Our diagnostic models showed similar discriminatory ability (AUROC range 0.74‐0.81) when distinguishing patients with AD from HCs and other dementias. The qLRP seems promising as a bedside digital biomarker to aid in diagnosing AD.Highlights We demonstrated the diagnostic performance of qLRP in Alzheimer's disease. The diagnostic models were robust in sensitivity analyses. qLRP may assist in the bedside diagnostic evaluation of Alzheimer's disease.