A recent study testing the efficacy of AZD3480, an experimental drug for Alzheimer's disease, obtained inconclusive results.This isn't surprising, considering that other experimental Alzheimer's medications have created false hopes before yielding disappointing results. What's strange about this study is that when AZD3480 was compared to Aricept -- an FDA-approved drug for Alzheimer's disease -- not even Aricept met the study's requirements for showing statistically significant improvement among Alzheimer's individuals.
Huh? Aricept is one of the most widely used drugs to treat the cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. While it's not a cure, other research indicates that it postpones the worsening of Alzheimer's symptoms for 6 to 12 months in about half of the people who take it.
Yet in this study, when using the ADAS-Cog, an 11-part test considered more thorough than the Mini-Mental State Exam, neither AZD3480 nor Aricept resulted in improvement in any of the test's domains. It should be noted, however, that both drugs were associated with secondary improvements in behavior and functioning.
What does it mean when both an experimental drug and a widely used FDA-approved drug fail to help those with Alzheimer's in a controlled study? It means that we need to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease more than ever before. It also means that we need to keep an open mind about promising treatments like etanercept that aren't yet FDA-approved for Alzheimer's disease. The FDA-approved treatments available now are not enough.
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