Patients asking about APOE gene test results? Here’s what to tell them
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This guidance can help shape the conversations you have with patients who want to understand the results of their gene and biomarker testing for Alzheimer disease.
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The lifetime risk up to age 80-85 years for mild cognitive impairment or dementia owing to Alzheimer disease has been estimated as 30-55% for APOEε4 homozygotes, 20-25% for APOEε3/ε4 carriers and 10-15% for APOEε3 homozygotes according to population-based studies with a majority of individuals of European ancestry.
“the lifetime risk up to age 80–85 years for mild cognitive impairment or dementia owing to AD has been estimated as 30–55% for APOEε4 homozygotes, 20–25% for APOEε3/ε4 carriers and 10–15% for APOEε3 homozygotes according to population-based studies with a majority of individuals of European ancestry17,18.”
From Multifaceted roles of APOE in Alzheimer disease (2024) · cites this paper as [18]
Table 1 gives all three stated lifetime-risk ranges for MCI or dementia due to Alzheimer disease. Vignette 1 says the estimates are averaged across large population cohorts, and the discussion of sample diversity says most underlying data come from largely White samples. Our copy does not specify that these ranges measure risk up to age 80–85, so that age limit is unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Multifaceted roles of APOE in Alzheimer disease
Jackson, R. J., Hyman, B. T., & Serrano-Pozo, A. (2024) · Nature Reviews Neurology · doi:10.1038/s41582-024-00988-2 · Cited by 193 · see citing works
- Authors
- Stites
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin System (US)
- Corresponding author
- Stites
- Venue
- The Journal of Family Practice
- Published
- 2022-05
- Volume
- 71
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- E1-E7
- ISSN
- 0094-3509 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10032667
- OpenAlex
- W4280636312
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 0.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Journal of Family Practice (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- IUScholarWorks (Indiana University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Alzheimer's Association (K23AG065442, AARF-17-528934)
- National Institute on Aging (K23AG065442, P30AG036468, F30AG059346, P30AG072979, P30AG062421)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM140935)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
- Keywords
- Alzheimer's disease, genetic testing, biomarker testing, patient communication, test result interpretation
- MeSH terms
- Apolipoproteins E, Humans
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