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Multisite Assessment of Aging-Related Tau Astrogliopathy (ARTAG)

. 2017 Jul 01 ; 76 (7) : 605-619.

Language English Country England, Great Britain Media print

Document type Journal Article

Grant support
P30 AG010124 NIA NIH HHS - United States
R01 NS092398 NINDS NIH HHS - United States
G0300126 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
P01 AG017586 NIA NIH HHS - United States
T32 AG000255 NIA NIH HHS - United States
G0502157 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
G0400074 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
G0901945 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
G9901400 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
G0600953 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
K23 NS088341 NINDS NIH HHS - United States
P30 AG013854 NIA NIH HHS - United States
G0900582 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
G1100540 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
MR/J004308/1 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
R01 NS094003 NINDS NIH HHS - United States
MC_PC_14095 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
G0900652 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
MR/M024784/1 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom
G0900580 Medical Research Council - United Kingdom

Aging-related tau astrogliopathy (ARTAG) is a recently introduced terminology. To facilitate the consistent identification of ARTAG and to distinguish it from astroglial tau pathologies observed in the primary frontotemporal lobar degeneration tauopathies we evaluated how consistently neuropathologists recognize (1) different astroglial tau immunoreactivities, including those of ARTAG and those associated with primary tauopathies (Study 1); (2) ARTAG types (Study 2A); and (3) ARTAG severity (Study 2B). Microphotographs and scanned sections immunostained for phosphorylated tau (AT8) were made available for download and preview. Percentage of agreement and kappa values with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated for each evaluation. The overall agreement for Study 1 was >60% with a kappa value of 0.55 (95% CI 0.433-0.645). Moderate agreement (>90%, kappa 0.48, 95% CI 0.457-0.900) was reached in Study 2A for the identification of ARTAG pathology for each ARTAG subtype (kappa 0.37-0.72), whereas fair agreement (kappa 0.40, 95% CI 0.341-0.445) was reached for the evaluation of ARTAG severity. The overall assessment of ARTAG showed moderate agreement (kappa 0.60, 95% CI 0.534-0.653) among raters. Our study supports the application of the current harmonized evaluation strategy for ARTAG with a slight modification of the evaluation of its severity.

Institute of Neurology Medical University of Vienna Vienna Austria; Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research Institute on Aging and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; and Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology; and Department of Neurosurgery Center for Brain Injury and Repair University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia Pennsylvania; Department of Immunology Genetics and Pathology Uppsala University Uppsala Sweden; Institute of Neuroscience Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne UK; Department of Neuropathology Institute of Pathology Faculty of Medicine University of Debrecen Debrecen Hungary; Department of Neuroscience Mayo Clinic Jacksonville Florida; Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern ADC Neuropathology Core Chicago Illinois; Clinical Neuropathology King's College Hospital and London Neurodegenerative Brain Bank London UK; Institute of Neuropathology University Hospital Zurich Zurich Switzerland; University of California San Francisco Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases San Francisco California; Neuropathology Department Hôpital de La Salpetrière AP HP UPMC Sorbonne University Paris France; Institute of Neuropathology Bellvitge University Hospital University of Barcelona CIBERNED Hospitalet de Llobregat Barcelona Spain; Discipline of Pathology Sydney Medical School The University of Sydney Sydney Australia; Neurological Tissue Bank of the Biobank Hospital Clinic IDIBAPS Institut d'Investigacions Biomediques Pi i Barcelona Spain; Department of Medicine Imperial College London London UK; IRCCS Foundation Carlo Besta Neurological Institute Milan Italy; Memory and Aging Center Department of Neurology University of California San Francisco California; Department of Pathology University of Sao Paulo Medical School LIM São Paulo Brazil; Brain and Mind Centre Sydney Medical School The University of Sydney and UNSW Medicine and NeuRA Sydney Australia; Department of Pathology University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Dallas Texas; Fishberg Department of Neuroscience Friedman Brain Institute and Ronald M Loeb Center for Alzheimer's Disease Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York New York; Department of Neuropathology John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford UK; Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences University of Edinburgh Edinburgh UK; Department of Pathology University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Pennsylvania; Department of Mental Health and Psychiatry University Hospitals and University of Geneva School of Medicine Geneva Switzerland; Institute of Clinical Neurosciences University of Bristol Learning and Research Level 2 Southmead Hospital Bristol UK; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine University of British Columbia Vancouver Canada; Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine Thomayer Hospital Prague Czech Republic; Department of Pathology 1st Medical Faculty Charles University Prague Czech Republic; Department of Anatomical Pathology Alfred Hospital Prahran Victoria Australia; Division of Pathology St Michael's Hospital Toronto Ontario Canada; Department of Pathology and Sanders Brown Center on Aging University of Kentucky Lexington Kentucky; Physiopathology in Aging Lab Brazilian Aging Brain Study Group LIM22 University of Sao Paulo Medical School Sao Paulo Brazil; Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology Unit Department of Neurology University of São Paulo São Paulo Brazil; Netherlands Brainbank Amsterdam and Department of Pathology VU University Medical Center Amsterdam The Netherlands; Department of Neurology and Neurobiology of Aging Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Sciences Kanazawa Japan; Institute of Neuroanatomy Centre for Biomedicine and Medical Technology Mannheim Medical Faculty Mannheim Heidelberg University Heidelberg Germany; Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases and Gerontopsychiatry at the University of Bonn Medical Center Bonn Germany; Department of Pathology Brain Research Institute Niigata University Niigata Japan; Department of Neurology Saitama Medical University International Medical Center Saitama Japan; Department of Neuroscience Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; and Department of Pathology Universitaire Ziekenhuizen Leuven Leuven Belgium; Laboratory of Neuropathology Department of Pathology and Neuropathology Kepler University Hospital Medical School Johannes Kepler University Linz Austria; Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience University of Sheffield Sheffield UK; and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Centre for Cancer Therapeutics Ottawa Hospital Research Institute University of Ottawa Ontario Canada

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