Affiliations: Department of Neurology, Boston University Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Andreas Charidimou, MD PhD, Department of Neurology, Boston University Medical Center, Shapiro Building, 725 Albany St., 7th floor, Boston, MA 02118, USA. Tel.: +1 617 638 8456; E-mail: andreas.charidimou.09@ucl.ac.uk.
Abstract: An accurate diagnosis of sporadic cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is critical for patient management and research (including clinical trials) for this common small vessel pathology of the brain. While the “big bang” of the CAA field has been the device and wide adoption of the clinico-radiological Boston criteria which allowed for CAA diagnosis during life, these criteria are not without major shortcoming. As it is now becoming evident that CAA is probably not a single disease, but rather represents divergent pathophysiological phenotypes and clinical trajectories, new biomarker-driven diagnostic approaches should be sought. One such complimentary approach for CAA diagnosis is the use of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers (CSF), which could provide dynamic measures of the underlying disease process and is discussed in this commentary given exciting new advances. A hint on how the practicing clinician could apply the current CSF data for CAA diagnosis is also provided.
