An Alzheimer’s drug slows the rate of cognitive decline while reducing the amount of plaques in patients’ brains, according to the results of a clinical trial reported yesterday (June 25) at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Chicago. Compared to participants on a placebo, those who received the highest dose of the injected medicine had a 30 percent slower progression in symptoms.
“If you could really slow decline by 30 percent for people who are still normal or very mildly impaired, that would be clinically important,” Reisa Sperling, director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who was not involved in the study, tells The New York Times.
The study included more than 800 people with mild cognitive decline, and 161 received the highest of five doses, injected twice weekly for 18 months. The medicine, a monoclonal antibody called BAN2401, targets amyloid ...
