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By Conor Gaffey
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Early trials of a drug that could treat Alzheimer's disease have shown "tantalizing promise." A study published in the journal Nature on Thursday revealed an antibody treatment that appeared to slow the buildup of plaques in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's.
The study involved 165 patients with mild symptoms of the disease being injected with the antibody aducanumab. The trial was initially meant to be "exploratory" and test whether the process was safe, but researchers found that the treatment appeared to slow the buildup of plaques in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's.
According to a leading theory of Alzheimer's disease—which may constitute 60-70 percent of the global cases of dementia and results in a deterioration of memory, speech and motor skills—the condition is caused by the progressive accumulation of a protein, called amyloid-beta, that kills off healthy nerve cells in the brain.
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In the trial, researchers found that over the course of a year, patients who were given a higher dosage of aducanumab showed a decrease in the presence of amyloid plaques in the brain. Researchers carried out memory tests at the conclusion of the study and found that the drug had had "positive effects" on patients who took it.
Over the course of the study, however, 40 people dropped out, half of whom did so due to side effects including headaches, which increased with the dosage of aducanumab.
It has been more than a decade since the last drug for treatment of Alzheimer's was licensed and the researchers from biotech company Biogen and the University of Zurich are treating the results cautiously. The next phase of the research includes two separate studies to test the impact on cognitive decline and will involve recruiting 2,700 patients with very early stage Alzheimer's across Europe, North America and Asia.
Nevertheless, the study provided "tantalizing evidence" that a new treatment for Alzheimer's "may be on the horizon," according to Dr David Reynolds, chief scientific officer at Alzheimer's Research U.K.
Dr James Pickett, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said that the treatment could be unique as "no existing treatments for Alzheimer's directly interfere with the disease process," as aducanumab appears to do by breaking down plaque buildups.
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