High hopes new drug could be a ‘game changer’ against long-incurable Alzheimer’s [View all]

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Source: The Toronto Star

Wed., Aug. 31, 2016

In the bleak landscape of failed Alzheimer drugs, an experimental antibody treatment is renewing hope for a long-awaited “game changer” — though experts caution that clinical trials are still in the early stages and many unanswered questions remain.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, which is estimated to affect more than 46 million people worldwide. Despite exhaustive attempts, scientists have yet to find a single drug that can slow or stop the disease, though a handful of drugs can treat its symptoms.

But on Wednesday, American and Swiss researchers published tantalizing results from the early stages of their clinical trial for “aducanumab” — a human antibody that targets the toxic beta-amyloid protein that clumps together in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

The small study, published in the journal Nature, enrolled just 165 American patients in the early stages of dementia, 40 of whom dropped out. After just one year, patients receiving the highest doses of the drug saw their amyloid plaques significantly decreased, to a level that one study author called “fairly unprecedented.”

Read more: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/08/31/high-hopes-new-drug-could-be-a-game-changer-against-long-incurable-alzheimers.html