Radio Havana Cuba | First drug showing a positive trend in patients with Alzheimer's disease

Chicago, Jul 22 (RHC) A new drug that seems to offer a positive outlook against Alzheimer's disease will be presented at the largest annual Alzheimer's disease research conference, which begins this Sunday in Chicago, USA, USA Today. 19659002] According to the chain, the experimental drug called BAN2401 seems to have eliminated amyloid, a protein that is the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

All previous trials that attack amyloid, including those that cost hundreds of millions of dollars have failed in patients, while the new study suggests that this failure is due to late administration and insufficient .

"You have to start acting early and be very aggressive," said Reisa Sperling. , director of the Center for Research and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

According to representatives of the American company Biogen, which develops the drug in collaboration with the Japanese company Trial, eighteen months after starting to take the patients who received the highest dose experienced a fall Dramatic amyloid in their brain and gave signs that the progression had slowed down

However, researchers admit that it is not yet clear when exactly the treatment should be started.

Although anti-amyloid drugs are still considered the most promising for treating early forms of Alzheimer's disease The researchers are also developing drug candidates that act on other aspects of the disease. Thus, a positron emission tomography, or PET experimental, can visualize the accumulation of another protein characteristic of Alzheimer's disease, called tau.

Tests are currently underway to see if drugs that eliminate tau protein will benefit people. with Alzheimer's Sperling said that she is excited about the potential of this work, but notes that researchers still need to calculate how many of these medications to administer, what type of tau to use and what stage of the disease to deal with with these drugs. "We have years of work ahead of us," he said.

According to the scientist, a combination of treatments, perhaps an anti-amyloid drug and another antitank, might be the best approach, especially as the disease progresses. However, the drugs still have little to help people at more advanced stages of the disease and there is not much in the short term, admit the researchers.