No difference in dementia prediction between apolipoprotein E4 and the ischemic score.

INTRODUCTION: Few biomarkers exist for early detection of vascular cognitive impairment. We examined whether the Hachinski Ischemic Scale (HIS) can predict dementia in elderly. METHODS: We leveraged data of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging. First, we examined the association of HIS with incident dementia. Next, we compared HIS to apolipoprotein E (APOE E›4) in prediction of dementia. We trained the HIS and APOE E›4 models in the training dataset and used the trained models for dementia prediction in the validation dataset. RESULTS: A higher HIS level was associated with a higher odds of dementia (odds ratio = 1.64, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.41 to 1.90, P < .001). Dementia discrimination of the HIS model was not different from the APOE E›4 model (area under the curve difference = 0.002, 95% CI: -0.024 to 0.029, P = .857). The calibration of the HIS model was 13.7 (P = .091) and of the APOE E›4 model was 13.3 (P = .100). DISCUSSION: HIS may be used as a simple, inexpensive test to identify older adults at risk of developing dementia.