Cerebrospinal fluid sampling for research of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases when lumbar punctures are performed by anaesthetists

Abstract

Objectives: An increasing number of people are undergoing lumbar puncture (LP) for the purposes of research. Performing LP for research purposes introduces considerations that differ from LP performed for clinical, diagnostic or therapeutic reasons. The demand for research LP will greatly increase as biomarkers are used to both diagnose and monitor disease progression in clinical trials. Minimising adverse events is paramount because research participants receive no clinical benefit and often need repeat procedures. We describe the experience of performing LP for research by anaesthetists. Methods: We reviewed the clinical protocol and incidence of adverse events in 326 research LP in an ana..