ARTAG

Aging-related tau astrogliopathy (ARTAG) is a recently introduced terminology. To facilitate the consistent identification of ARTAG and to distinguish it from astroglial tau pathologies observed in the primary frontotemporal lobar degeneration tauopathies Kovacs et al. evaluated how consistently neuropathologists recognize (1) different astroglial tau immunoreactivities, including those of ARTAG and those associated with primary tauopathies (Study 1); (2) ARTAG types (Study 2A); and (3) ARTAG severity (Study 2B). Microphotographs and scanned sections immunostained for phosphorylated tau (AT8) were made available for download and preview. Percentage of agreement and kappa values with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated for each evaluation. The overall agreement for Study 1 was >60% with a kappa value of 0.55 (95% CI 0.433-0.645). Moderate agreement (>90%, kappa 0.48, 95% CI 0.457-0.900) was reached in Study 2A for the identification of ARTAG pathology for each ARTAG subtype (kappa 0.37-0.72), whereas fair agreement (kappa 0.40, 95% CI 0.341-0.445) was reached for the evaluation of ARTAG severity. The overall assessment of ARTAG showed moderate agreement (kappa 0.60, 95% CI 0.534-0.653) among raters. Our study supports the application of the current harmonized evaluation strategy for ARTAG with a slight modification of the evaluation of its severity 1).

1)
Kovacs GG, Xie SX, Lee EB, Robinson JL, Caswell C, Irwin DJ, Toledo JB, Johnson VE, Smith DH, Alafuzoff I, Attems J, Bencze J, Bieniek KF, Bigio EH, Bodi I, Budka H, Dickson DW, Dugger BN, Duyckaerts C, Ferrer I, Forrest SL, Gelpi E, Gentleman SM, Giaccone G, Grinberg LT, Halliday GM, Hatanpaa KJ, Hof PR, Hofer M, Hortobágyi T, Ironside JW, King A, Kofler J, Kövari E, Kril JJ, Love S, Mackenzie IR, Mao Q, Matej R, McLean C, Munoz DG, Murray ME, Neltner J, Nelson PT, Ritchie D, Rodriguez RD, Rohan Z, Rozemuller A, Sakai K, Schultz C, Seilhean D, Smith V, Tacik P, Takahashi H, Takao M, Rudolf Thal D, Weis S, Wharton SB, White CL 3rd, Woulfe JM, Yamada M, Trojanowski JQ. Multisite Assessment of Aging-Related Tau Astrogliopathy (ARTAG). J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 2017 Jun 7. doi: 10.1093/jnen/nlx041. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 28591867.