Relationships between cerebrovascular events, APOE polymorphism and Alzheimer's disease in a community sample

To investigate whether the APOE*4 allele modified the relationship between cerebrovascular events and Alzheimer's disease (AD), we collected evidence of previous stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) and determined APOE g enotype among 102 subjects with AD and 375 nondemented subjects in a commun ity-based study of dementia, Subjects with a history of stroke or TIA were twice as likely to have AD as subjects without such a history. However, APO E*4 carriers with a history of stroke/TIA were 5 times more likely than APO E*4 carriers without such a history to have AD (odds ratio = 5.3, 95% confi dence interval = 1.4-20.9). History of stroke/TIA had little effect on the likelihood of having AD in subjects without an APOE*4 allele. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.