Introduction: The role of gender in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and its possible interaction with apolipoprotein E (apoE), has been controversial.
Material and methods: ApoE allelic frequencies and the effect of apoE epsilon4 allele dosage on risk and age at onset of AD were evaluated, separately for men and women, in 100 patients with sporadic AD and 100 age-matched controls.
Results: The distribution of apoE alleles and the odds ratio for AD, when associated with 1 or 2 epsilon4 alleles, were not statistically different between men and women. No effect of the dosage of the epsilon4 allele was found on the age at onset of dementia in the 2 sex groups.
Conclusion: Our data suggest that the relation of the apoE genotype to AD is not dependent on sex.