We could be in the precipice of a fundamental moment in the investigation of Alzheimer’s disease. In clinical trial data published this week, scientists have presented early evidence that it is possible to delay symptoms in people genetically destined to develop Alzheimer’s at an early age.
Researchers at the University of Washington Faculty directed the study, whose objective was to test whether an experimental anti-amyloid medicine called Gantenerumab could help people with a hereditary form of Alzheimer’s. In a subset of patients treated longer, the medicine seemed to reduce its risk of developing symptoms as expected, in 50%. The findings will require follow -up, but external experts are cautiously optimistic about what this could mean for the future of Alzheimer’s treatment.
“The results make it clear that there is a good hope that the treatment of [Alzheimer’s] The pathology in the preclinical stages of pathology can be effective to decelerate or prevent the beginning of the disease, ”said Nyu Langone’s cognitive neurology, who is not affiliated with research, to Gizdooo.
Gantenerumab It is one of the many similar drugs that scientists have developed for Alzheimer’s. It is a laboratory antibody that is directed to Beta Amiloid, one of the two proteins that is believed to play a fundamental role in causing Alzheimer’s (the other is Tau). In people with Alzheimer’s, a poorly folded version of beta amyloid accumulates in the brain, forming resistant groups known as plates that eventually curl into the organ. Scientists have theorized that it is possible to stop or at least slow down Alzheimer’s with drugs such as Gantenerumab that break and prevent these plates from being form.
Unfortunately, it has not been a soft trip for this hypothesis. Many anti-amyloid medications have proven promising from the beginning, only to fail in larger trials that were tested for people who have already begun to experience Alzheimer’s symptoms. That list includes Gantenerumab; At the end of 2022, the Roche Pharmaceutical Company Turn off your development of the drug after a couple of phase III trials failed.
But the most recent anti-amyloid medications have demonstrated a modest but remarkable effect on Alzheimer’s deceleration, enough to obtain the approval of the Food and Drug Administration. Some researchers, even in Washu Medicine, expected anti-amyloid treatment to be more effective when they are administered long before the appearance of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
As of 2012, the researchers and others launched prevention tests that tested anti-amyloid agents in people with hereditary Alzheimer’s alzheimer’s, a genetic condition that guarantees the development of dementia at some point between 30 and 50 of a person. Most of these essays have not succeeded, except possibly for the one that has Gantenerumab.
When Gantenerumab’s original study concluded in 2020, the researchers found that they reduced people’s amyloid levels. But it was too early to know if they could delay the symptoms of people, since most patients at the beginning of the study were not expected to get sick from another 10 to 15 years. Then, the researchers decided to openly provide Gantenerumab to their patients (including those who were taking a placebo or other medication) as part of an extension study.
They are the latest results of this study, published on Wednesday in Lancet Neurology, which has excited people.
“All in this study were aimed at developing Alzheimer statement of the University. “We still don’t know how long they will remain free of symptoms, maybe a few years or maybe decades.”
That said, there are important warnings for the study.
On the one hand, the findings only hint a potential preventive benefit, says Wisniewski. Although the drug may have reduced the risk of cognitive decrease in the largest general group of people without symptoms, this reduction was not statistically significant (possibly due to the low number of patients in the study, 73 in total, says Wisniewski). In the subset of asymptomatic patients who were treated longer, approximately eight years on average, the medicine seemed to reduce its expected possibilities of cognitive impairment by 50%. But this subset only included 22 patients, an even smaller sample size.
The essay also ended before expected for many patients due to Roche’s abandonment, and some people left for other reasons. The drug seemed to be generally safe and tolerable, although approximately one third developed abnormalities of amyloid -related images, or Arias, which are swelling markers or bleeding of the brain. Arias are a known side effect of these medications, although most episodes go unnoticed by patients. Two patients experienced serious arias, which led researchers to stop treatment, after which they recovered. No potentially mortal events or deaths were reported during the study.
In general, the study is not a definitive proof that anti-amyloid medications can work for Alzheimer’s in advance. But since this form is essentially inevitable, these results are the first of a clinical trial that suggests that it could be. Together with the previous approvals of Lecanemab and Donanemab for the classical version of the neurodegenerative disorder, there seems to be something real here.
“We already know for the data of Lecanemab and Donanemab that anti-amyloid antibodies (AAA) can delay the progression of the common and sporadic Alzheimer’s,” said Sam Gray, associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center on Mount Sinai. “This document focuses on the use of a different AAA (Gantenerumab) to demonstrate a similar phenomenon is true in the early genetic start Alzheimer,” added Gray, who is not affiliated with new research.
Gray, Wisniewski and the study researchers themselves agree that this is only the beginning. In fact, there are ongoing prevention tests at this time for both start and Classic AlzheimerIncluding several that are administered through its dominated Alzheimer’s Network Control Unit. These tests are approved experimental anti-amyloid medications tests that could show even more a protective benefit than the gantenerumab. Researchers were also able to change many of their patients in the original extension study to Lecanemab, although data in this phase have not yet been analyzed.
They are the first days, but there may be a genuine hope for this incurable disease in the horizon.