Supplemental material: Astrocyte biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine whether fluid and imaging astrocyte biomarkers are altered in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Methods: PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched for articles reporting fluid or imaging astrocyte biomarkers in AD. Pooled effect sizes were determined with mean differences (SMD) using the Hedge’s G method with random-effects to determine biomarker performance. Adapted questions from QUADAS-2 were applied for quality assessment. A protocol for this study has been previously registered in PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42020192304).

Results: The initial search identified 1,425 articles. After exclusion criteria were applied, 33 articles (a total of 3,204 individuals) measuring levels of GFAP, S100B, YKL-40 and AQP4 in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), as well as MAO-B, indexed by positron emission tomography 11C-deuterium-L-deprenyl ([11C]-DED), were included. GFAP (SMD = 0.94; 95% CI = 0.71-1.18) and ...