González-Sánchez, MartaBartolome, FernandoAntequera, DesireéPuertas-Martín, VeronicaGonzález, PilarGómez-Grande, AdolfoLlamas-Velasco, SaraHerrero-San Martín, AlejandroPérez-Martínez, DavidVillarejo-Galende, AlbertoAtienza, MercedesPalomar-Bonet, MiriamCantero, José LuisPerry, GeorgeOrive, GorkaIbáñez, BorjaBueno, HectorFuster, ValentinCarro, Eva2020-10-082020-10-082020-07EBioMedicine. 2020; 57:102834http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12105/11121Background: Evidences of infectious pathogens in Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains may suggest a deteriorated innate immune system in AD pathophysiology. We previously demonstrated reduced salivary lactoferrin (Lf) levels, one of the major antimicrobial proteins, in AD patients. Methods: To assess the clinical utility of salivary Lf for AD diagnosis, we examine the relationship between salivary Lf and cerebral amyloid-β (Aβ) load using amyloid-Positron-Emission Tomography (PET) neuroimaging, in two different cross-sectional cohorts including patients with different neurodegenerative disorders. Findings: The diagnostic performance of salivary Lf in the cohort 1 had an area under the curve [AUC] of 0•95 (0•911-0•992) for the differentiation of the prodromal AD/AD group positive for amyloid-PET (PET+) versus healthy group, and 0•97 (0•924-1) versus the frontotemporal dementia (FTD) group. In the cohort 2, salivary Lf had also an excellent diagnostic performance in the health control group versus prodromal AD comparison: AUC 0•93 (0•876-0•989). Salivary Lf detected prodromal AD and AD dementia distinguishing them from FTD with over 87% sensitivity and 91% specificity. Interpretation: Salivary Lf seems to have a very good diagnostic performance to detect AD. Our findings support the possible utility of salivary Lf as a new non-invasive and cost-effective AD biomarker.engVoRhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional325867585710283410.1016/j.ebiom.2020.1028342352-3964EBioMedicineopen access