A recent study published in the journal Neurology, found that the drug lecanemab against him alzheimers, experimentally approved in the United States, reduced the brain size of treated patients by 28% compared to those who received alternative therapies.
what is the alzheimers?
Alzheimer’s is a degenerative brain disease that affects memory, thinking, comprehension, language and the ability to carry out activities of daily living and causes cognitive damage in patients.
Research estimated that in 2019 there were 57 million people worldwide suffering from some form of dementia, most of them caused by Alzheimer’s disease, and that this could increase by 150 million people affected by 2050.
A scientific review published in the journal Neurology warned days ago that Alzheimer’s therapies are causing a loss in brain volume.
So far, in trials conducted by the Japanese pharmaceutical Eisai and the American Biogen, the “promising” drug lecanemab had managed to reduce cognitive decline in patients by 27% compared to other alternative therapies.
For this reason, in January of this year, lecanemab was experimentally approved in the United States.
It is a high affinity humanized monoclonal antibody that is administered as an intravenous infusion every two weeks over a period of 18 months, with the aim of eliminating amyloid beta protein from the brain.
However, the study carried out by scientists Francesca Alves, Pawel Kallinowski, and Scott Ayton from the Florey Institute of Neoscience and Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia, noted that patients who took lecanemab had 28 percent greater brain shrinkage than those who were treated with a placebo.
The authors of the article conducted a meta-analysis of 31 clinical studies of anti-amyloid Alzheimer’s drugs, including lecanemab.
The analyzes found a greater loss of cortical volume with the drug lecanemab compared with those who took placebo.
“It is possible that accelerated brain atrophy is caused by other factors, but when considering the possibility of brain damage, we should be cautious in our interpretations and accumulate more data,” Ayton said on Twitter.
“We recommend that doctors alert patients to the risk of brain atrophy, that brain atrophy be actively monitored in clinical trials (including long-term follow-up), and that pharmaceutical companies running the trials publish more information about changes in brain volume,” he added.
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical Eisai postulated through a statement that, although participants in its trial experienced “greater loss of cortical volume with lecanemab compared to placebo, these reductions may be due to antibodies removing amyloid beta protein from the brain and reduce inflammation.
In that regard, the scientists acknowledged that more studies are needed to determine if brain shrinkage is a common side effect of drugs that remove beta-amyloid protein deposits.
At the moment, approval is still pending to grant permanent authorization or not to the drug lecanemab by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA, for its acronym in English).
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
