Alzheimer's Disease, Apolipoprotein E4, and Gender

Abstract
To the Editor. —Researchers at Duke University have shown that apolipoproteinE4(apo E) gene dosage correlates with increased risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD).1Their study included members of 42 families with late-onset AD (age at onset, >60 years) with known apo E genotype and used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis to estimate the age-of-onset curves for subjects with zero, one, and twoE4alleles. The resulting curves revealed a significant dosage effect, where each additionalE4allele shifted the onset to an earlier age. We have performed a similar study, which included members of 52 families with late-onset AD (age at onset, >60 years) with known apo E genotype and used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis to estimate the age-of-onset curves for subjects with zero, one, and twoE4alleles. Our study included 252 individuals with known age and apo E genotype; 38 were younger than 60 years,