Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33940564›Full record

ArticleParkinsonism & related disorders2021

Plasma neurofilament light in Huntington's disease: A marker for disease onset, but not symptom progression.

Georgia M Parkin, Jody Corey-Bloom, Chase Snell, Jordan Castleton, Elizabeth A Thomas

Open access · hybridAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Parkinsonism & related disorders, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
21citing papers in PubMed
2.7field-weighted citation impact, top 9% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

21 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Fluid and Imaging Biomarkers in Huntington's Disease.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2026
    Review
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  15. Peripheral Biomarkers in Manifest and Premanifest Huntington's Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023
    Review
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.

Georgia M ParkinDepartment of Epidemiology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA. Electronic address: gparkin@hs.uci.edu.
Jody Corey-BloomDepartment of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA. Electronic address: jcoreybloom@health.ucsd.edu.
Chase SnellDepartment of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA. Electronic address: cmsnell@health.ucsd.edu.
Jordan CastletonDepartment of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA. Electronic address: jcastleton@ucsd.edu.
Elizabeth A ThomasDepartment of Epidemiology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA. Electronic address: eathoma1@hs.uci.edu.
UC San Diego Health System · USUniversity of California, Irvine · USUniversity of California San Diego · US

Funding

VIRUS-INDUCED BRAIN PATHOLOGYP50AG005131 · NIA · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI BREWER, JAMES B · 1985 to 2018
$55.4M
Exploration of salivary huntingtin for biomarker discoveryR21NS111655 · NINDS · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · PI THOMAS, ELIZABETH A · 2019 to 2020
$425k
NIA NIH HHS P50 AG005131NINDS NIH HHS R21 NS111655
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveTo investigate whether plasma NfL levels correlate with clinical symptom severity in premanifest (PM) and manifest HD (HD) individuals, and whether a NfL cut-point could distinguish PM from HD patients with reasonable accuracy.

method98 participants (33 control, 26 PM, 39 HD), underwent blood sample collection and clinical assessment, using both UHDRS and non-UHDRS measures, at one academic HD Center. Years to onset (YTO), probability of disease onset in 5 years, and predicted years until 60% onset probability were also calculated. NfL levels were measured using a Meso Scale Discovery assay.

resultsCohorts differed by age. NfL levels differed significantly across diagnostic groups and were significantly correlated with age. Age-adjusted NfL levels were not correlated with clinical measures in either HD or PM cohorts, but were correlated when cohorts were combined. In PM subjects, NfL levels correlated with YTO, probability of onset in 5 years, and years until 60% onset probability. Using ROC analysis, a NfL cut-point of <53.15 pg/ml distinguished HD from control; <74.84 pg/ml distinguished HD from PM.

conclusionsThese findings implicate plasma NfL as a peripheral prognostic marker for premanifest-HD. Notably, we show that significant correlations between NfL and clinical symptoms are detected only when PM + HD subjects are combined, but not within HD subjects alone. To date, prior studies have investigated the clinical usefulness of NfL exclusively in merged PM + HD cohorts. Our data suggests a biasing of these previous correlations, and hence potentially limited usefulness of plasma NfL in monitoring HD symptom progression, for example, in clinical trials.

Indexed as

Prodromal SymptomsAdultAgedAged, 80 and overBiomarkersCohort StudiesDisease ProgressionFemaleHumansHuntington DiseaseMaleMiddle AgedNeurofilament ProteinsYoung AdultBiomarkersneurofilament protein LNeurofilament ProteinsBiomarkerBloodHuntington's diseaseNeurofilament lightPlasma

Identifiers

PMID33940564
PMCPMC9083556
OpenAlexW3159221110

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.