New Drug Shows “Impressive” Results With Alzheimer Patients
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Alzheimer’s news that is encouraging doctors: Biogen Idec’s drug aducanumab has been shown to slow mental decline in patients with early or mild Alzheimer’s disease. A small drug trial has been completed and the full results were released today.
The New York Times reports 166 patients were randomly given low to high doses of the drug, meant to eliminate amyloid plaque in the brain, or a placebo. Experts say the trial was designed to assess aducanumab’s safety rather than effects, but the drug proved to be the first to both ease plaque and slow cognitive decline, Forbes reports. “It would be kind of hard to get those kind of results by chance,” a doctor says. Another adds the drug was “impressive” when taken in the highest dose.
Over a year, placebo patients fell 3.14 points on a 30-point cognition scale, while those taking the highest dose dropped 0.58 points. Patients on a middle dose slid 0.75 points.
Researchers caution, however, that taking the drug, also known as BIIB037, in the highest dose led to swelling in the brain at a higher rate than with other drugs in its class. About 55% of high-dose patients with the genetic variant APOE4 reported the side effect, compared to 17% without the variant; The side effect hit 11% of middle-dose patients without the variant. Some 22% of patients also reported headaches, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Many believe amyloid plaque causes dementia, yet other drugs designed to prevent or remove the plaque have failed. To boost the chance of success, Biogen used an imaging technique to ensure patients had plaque in their brains.
Researchers note that other drugs that looked promising in early trials proved ineffective in larger ones; Biogen is now planning a trial of 1,000 patients. Forbes reports that a positive result could push the drug to market by 2020.
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My mother had Alzheimer’s for the last 5 years of her life. Fortunately for me I had been acquainted with the disease through some work and research I was doing in gerontology. As mom began to lose some of her short term memory, one of the early signs, I talked with a lot people with expertise in the field and learn some things that greatly helped me. One of the most important things that I learned was that I needed to not add confusion to mom’s already confused mind by insisting that she remember things. The Alzheimer’s patient is trying to cope with some degree of amnesia mixed in with flashes of long term memory which is slowly erased. Family members who continue to insist that they remember them only adds to their confusion. To some degree, some patients are simply starting a new life and new memories. One case involving the husband of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor ended painfully for her since he no longer recognized her and fell in love with another patient at his nursing home.
It is, as you say Norm, a dreadful disease that causes pain far beyond just the patient.
Bloody awful ailment. Anything that helps in any way is to be embraced and made available immediately if not sooner.