Researchers have successfully tested a drug that removes accumulated toxic plaques in the brain from patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease, researchers said on Thursday.
According to experts, these harmful deposits play a crucial role in disrupting cellular processes and blocking communication between nerve cells.
Although most mature brains contain some plaques, the brains of patients with Alzheimer's tend to have many more. The disease, the most common form of dementia, has no cure, although there are some treatments available to relieve symptoms. So far, treatments to delay or reverse it have not worked.
Biogen, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, developed the drug Aducanumab and funded the study, which involved 165 patients with mild cognitive impairment. Patients were divided into groups, given medication or placebo for 54 weeks.
According to the PET brain scanners, all groups receiving the drug showed a reduction in harmful deposits, although the magnitude depended on the duration of treatment and the dose. The group receiving the highest dose had the highest plaque reduction of all.
However, the human study was not designed to test the cognitive benefits in patients.
On the other hand, the study has very few patients to really demonstrate that the drug works, wrote Eric M. Reiman, executive director of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Phoenix, in a commentary on the research, published in the journal Nature. He added that many other drugs to fight Alzheimer's seemed promising in the early stages, but ended up failing.
However, "confirmation of a cognitive benefit would be a change," said Reiman, a psychiatrist who is not affiliated with the current study.
According to the researchers, animal tests conducted before the test in humans showed that the drug was able to cross the blood-brain barrier and remove plaques from the brains of the mice.
Of the total number of patients, 125 completed the treatment. The remaining 40 were withdrawn due to negative side effects, some including the presence of fluid in the brain as a result of plaque removal. In some cases, this can cause brain hemorrhages.
Broader clinical trials of the drug are ongoing and are expected to be carried out at least until 2020.
SOURCE: CNN
SOURCE: CNN
