Scientists announce a possible breakthrough in Alzheimer’s delay

We may be at the gap at a major moment in the study of Alzheimer’s disease. In clinical trial data published this week, scientists have presented early evidence that it is possible to slow down symptoms in humans genetically fate to develop Alzheimer’s at a young age.

Researchers at the University of Medicine at the University of Washington have led a study aimed at checking that an experimental anti -amyloid drug called Gantenerumab can help people with a hereditary form of Alzheimer’s. In the subgroup of patients treated for a long time, the drug seems to reduce the risk of developing symptoms, as expected, by 50%. The findings will require follow -up, but external experts are cautiously optimistic about what this may mean for the future of treating Alzheimer’s treatment.

“The results make it clear that there is good hope that the treatment of (Alzheimer’s) pathology in the pre -clinical stages of the pathology can be effective for delaying or preventing the onset of the disease,” said Thomas M. Vishrevski, Director of the Cognitive Neurology Center at NYU Lange, which is not related to study, which is not related to study.

Gantenerumab is one of the many similar drugs that scientists have developed for Alzheimer’s. This is a laboratory antibody aimed at beta amyloid, one of the two proteins is thought to play a critical role in causing Alzheimer’s (the other is Tau). In people with Alzheimer’s brain, an incorrectly folded version of amyloid beta accumulates in the brain, forming in durable lumps known as plaques that ultimately caress the organ. Scientists theoretize that it is possible to stop or at least slow down Alzheimer’s with drugs such as Gantenerumab, which break down and prevent the formation of these plaques.

Unfortunately, this was not a smooth ride for this hypothesis. Many anti-amyloid drugs show a promise at the beginning, only to fail in larger trials that have tested them for people who are already beginning to experience Alzheimer’s symptoms. This list includes Gantenerumab; At the end of 2022, the pharmaceutical company Roche Exclude its development The drug after a pair of phase III tests failed.

But newer anti-amyloid drugs demonstrated a modest but noticeable effect on delaying Alzheimer’s, enough to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Some researchers, including Washu Medicine, have hoped that treatment with antiamiloids can be more effective when administered long before the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Since 2012, researchers and others have launched prevention tests, testing anti-amyloid agents in people with Alzheimer’s dominant hereditary, genetic condition, which all guarantees the development of dementia somewhere between the 30s and 1950s of a person. Most of these tests have not succeeded, except for the one with Gantenerumab.

When the initial study of Gantenerumab ended in 2020, researchers found that it reduced human amyloid levels. But it was too early to know if this could slow down the symptoms of people, as most patients were not expected to get sick at the beginning of the study for another 10 to 15 years. The researchers then decided to openly provide Gantenerumab to their patients (including those who take placebo or other medicine) as part of an extension study.

This is the worst results of this study, published on Wednesday in the lancet neurology, which is excited about people.

“Everyone in this study was destined to develop Alzheimer’s disease and some of them are not yet,” says senior author Randal J. Bateman, Professor of Neurology at Washu Medicine, in a statement from the university. “We still don’t know how long they will be left without symptoms-maybe for several years or maybe decades.”

This said there were important warnings about the study.

On the one hand, the findings are only hinting at a potential preventive benefit, notes Wisniewski. Although the drug may have reduced the risk of cognitive decline in the total higher group of people without symptoms, this decrease is not statistically significant (probably due to the low number of patients in the study, a total of 73, says Wisniewski). In the subgroup of asymptomatic patients who have been treated for the longest time – about eight years on average – the drug seems to reduce the expected chances of a cognitive decline by 50%. But this subset includes only 22 patients, an even smaller sample size.

The test also ended earlier than expected for many patients due to the abandonment of Roche from the drug, and some people dropped out for other reasons. The drug looks generally safe and tolerable, though about a third developed anomalies associated with amyloids, or arias that are markers of swelling or bleeding of the brain. The arias are a known side effect of these drugs, although most episodes are unnoticed by patients. Two patients experienced heavy arias, which prompted the researchers to stop treatment, after which they recovered. During the study, no life -threatening events or deaths were reported.

In general, the study is not final proof that anti -amyloid drugs can work for Alzheimer’s this far in advance. But since this form is essentially inevitable, these results are the first of the clinical trial, which suggests that it can be treated. Combined with the wider approvals of LecaneMab and Donanemab for the classic version of neurodegenerative disorder, there is something real here.

“From the data of LecaneMab and Donanemab we already know that anti -amoloid antibodies (AAAS) can delay the progression of ordinary, sporadic Alzheimer’s,” Sam Grady, an associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Mount Sinai, in front of Gizmodo. “This document focuses on the use of a different AAA (Gantenerumab) to demonstrate such a phenomenon is true in the genetic early beginning of Alzheimer’s,” added Grady, who is not related to the new study.

Grady, Vishnevski and the research researchers themselves agree that this is just the beginning. Currently, the prevention tests are ongoing for both the early onset and the Alzheimer’s classicincluding several To be managed by Washu through its dominant inherited block of Alzheimer Network-Trials. These tests are testing approved and newer experimental anti-amyloid drugs that could show even more than Gantenerumab protective benefit. Researchers also managed to switch many of their patients in the initial expansion of the lecanemab extension, although data from this phase remain to be analyzed.

The early days are, but there may be real hope for this incurable disease.