DELCODE
DZNE Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study
Yearly brain MRI, cognition, CSF and, for a subset, amyloid and FDG PET from German memory clinics, focused on subjective cognitive decline as an early at-risk state for Alzheimer's disease, with MCI, mild dementia, relatives and controls. About 1,000 people aged 60 and over. Access by application.
Overview
DELCODE is a longitudinal observational study run by the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) at university memory clinics across Germany. It started in 2014 and focuses on subjective cognitive decline (SCD) as an early at-risk state for Alzheimer's disease, compared with mild cognitive impairment, mild Alzheimer's dementia, first-degree relatives of patients and cognitively normal controls. It is used to study early markers and predictors of cognitive decline.
Composition
The DZNE reports about 1,000 enrolled participants aged 60 or older, seen once a year. The design paper describes the first 394 baseline participants: 141 controls, 126 with SCD, 65 with amnestic MCI, 40 with mild Alzheimer's dementia and 22 first-degree relatives; 208 of them were women. Mean age by group ranged from 64.8 (relatives) to 72.8 years. Patients were referred by the memory clinics; controls and relatives were recruited through newspaper adverts. Clinical and neuropsychological testing, blood, urine and, in about half of the participants, cerebrospinal fluid come with the imaging.
Acquisition
MRI is acquired at nine sites, all with 3 T Siemens scanners (three TIM Trio, four Verio, one Skyra, one Prisma), under shared SOPs, a travelling-head qualification and weekly phantom checks. The standard protocol has a T1-weighted scan, resting-state fMRI, a coronal T2-weighted scan of the medial temporal lobe, task fMRI and a quantitative susceptibility-weighted image. One site acquires DTI instead of task fMRI, and three sites add a second scanning day with DTI, further task fMRI and a locus coeruleus sequence. A 1 mm isotropic FLAIR is also part of the protocol. A PET substudy in participants with SCD adds florbetaben amyloid PET and FDG PET, mostly on PET-CT; by the time of the design paper, 25 amyloid and 16 FDG scans had been acquired.
Annotations
No image labels are published. Every scan is checked centrally for protocol conformity and quality.
Known limitations
- The group breakdown, sex and age are only published for the first 394 participants. Numbers for the full cohort are not on the website.
- First-degree relatives have no matching condition term in this index and are not counted under any condition.
- Access goes through a DZNE committee review, and the data use agreement for external researchers is not published.
- The exact type of the susceptibility scan (SWI or a quantitative map) is not specified in the design paper.
Cohort
Aggregate numbers from the sources below. Bars are relative to the 1,000 subjects.
Sex
- Female 208 100%
Covers 208 of 1,000 subjects.
Table 1 in Jessen F et al. 2018, Design and first baseline data of DELCODE, Alzheimer's Research & Therapy
Condition
Groups can overlap
- Healthy control 141 14%Age mean 68.6
- Subjective cognitive decline 126 13%Age mean 71.4
- Mild cognitive impairment 65 7%Age mean 72.8
- Alzheimer's disease 40 4%Age mean 72.8
Table 1 in Jessen F et al. 2018, Design and first baseline data of DELCODE, Alzheimer's Research & Therapy
PET tracer
Studies- [18F]florbetaben 25
- [18F]FDG 16
Methods (PET) in Jessen F et al. 2018, Design and first baseline data of DELCODE, Alzheimer's Research & Therapy
Condition by sex
Reported cross table. A dot marks a cell the source does not give.
| Female | |
|---|---|
| Healthy control | 83 |
| Subjective cognitive decline | 65 |
| Mild cognitive impairment | 25 |
| Alzheimer's disease | 23 |
Table 1 in Jessen F et al. 2018, Design and first baseline data of DELCODE, Alzheimer's Research & Therapy
License and access
Our reading of the license, not legal advice. Before you use the data, read the original license and confirm that your use is allowed. We take no responsibility for how you use a dataset. Full disclaimer
A research proposal is reviewed and approved
Regulations for use of Clinical Research databases, data and biomaterials of the DZNE
Data from DZNE clinical studies are released per project after a written application with an ethics vote is approved by the study steering committee or the DZNE Clinical Board. External researchers sign a data use agreement. Direct commercial use is excluded, publications go to the DZNE 30 days before submission and DZNE co-authorship is expected.
External researchers also sign a data use agreement with the DZNE. Its text is not published. The design paper states that the data are not publicly available but may be provided upon reasonable request.
What you can do
- Conditional
- Conditional
- Not stated
- Not stated
- Conditional
What you can share
- Not stated
- Share derived data Not stated
- Share trained models Not stated
What you must do
- Yes
- Share alike No
- Yes
- Yes
- Yes
- Release code No
- No
- Not stated
Limits
- Not stated
- Conditional
Citation
Jessen F, Spottke A, Boecker H, et al. Design and first baseline data of the DZNE multicenter observational study on predementia Alzheimer's disease (DELCODE). Alzheimer's Research & Therapy 10:15 (2018). doi:10.1186/s13195-017-0314-2
Sources
Every number on this page comes from one of these documents. Each chart names the table or page it is taken from. The raw numbers are in stats.csv.