Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Researchers have heralded a recent clinical trial of an Alzheimer-related therapy as a historic breakthrough in the treatment of the disease after the drug under-experiment was found to slow down the cognitive decline in patients with early stages of the disease.
The success comes after decades of failure and depicts a new era of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s – the most common form of dementia in the world.
What is the drug under-trial and how does it work against Alzheimer?
The under-trial drug, Lecanemab, is an antibody that finds and removes beta-Amyloid protein that builds up and forms clumps in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s.
According to drugmakers Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen, the drug was found to halt the rate of cognitive decline by 27% in an 18-month study involving participants in the early stage of the disease. Lecanemab works in the early stages of the ailment so most might miss out without a revolution in spotting it.
Beta-Amyloid has been the dominant explanation for Alzheimer’s for decades. One of its forms, beta-amyloid 42, is thought to be especially toxic. In the Alzheimer’s brain, abnormal levels of this naturally occurring protein which clumps together to form plaques that build up between neurons and disrupt cell function.
Alzheimer: facts and figures
It is estimated that approximately 44 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s or a related form of dementia. In the US alone, an estimated 5.5 million people of all age groups have Alzheimer’s. Of these, around 5.3 million are 65 or above and 200,000 are younger and suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
However, till date, there is still no cure for the disease with only around one in four people with the Alzheimer’s getting diagnosed.
