EMA’s human medicines committee has recommended not authorising the marketing of Kisunla (donanemab), a drug intended for the treatment of early-stage Alzheimer's disease. The committee considered that the benefits of this drug were not great enough to outweigh the risk of potentially fatal events. In recent years, several patients have died due to microbleeds in the brain.
The DIAN-TU platform is an initiative to test Alzheimer's disease treatments early, by recruiting people with a mutation that leads to developing the disease in the future. One of the trials with the anti-amyloid drug gantenerumab ended without reaching the targets. However, a continuation of the study in 73 patients suggests - for the first time, according to the authors - that long-term, high-dose treatment given some time before symptoms develop could delay the onset of the disease. The results are published in the journal The Lancet Neurology.
A review of 14 studies and data from more than 130 million patients has found an association between the use of drugs such as anti-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics and vaccines and a reduced risk of dementia. The authors recall that “the fact that a particular drug is associated with an altered risk of dementia does not necessarily mean that it causes or helps against it.” However, “pooling these huge health data sets provides a source of evidence that can help us decide which drugs to try first.” The research is published in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.
A study by Italian researchers has tested a treatment administered as a nasal spray to slow down early-stage Alzheimer's disease. Administered in mice, the treatment inhibits an enzyme linked to the disease and to insulin resistance. According to the researchers, who publish the work in the journal PNAS, application of the spray to the animals “can counteract the accumulation of harmful proteins in neurons and delay the onset and progression of cognitive decline”.
Less than four months after the European Medicines Agency recommended in July not to grant marketing authorisation for Leqembi™ (lecanemab) for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, the EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has reassessed the available evidence to conclude that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Men and women could develop Alzheimer’s disease through different mechanisms. Understanding these differences is essential to design specific interventions and to treat the disease effectively. In an article published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, a group of researchers, including myself, have highlighted the urgency of adding a sex and gender approach to the studies on this pathology.
Mice with Alzheimer's disease are more resistant to the development of colorectal tumors, a study shows. An inverse relationship between Alzheimer's and cancer has already been shown in epidemiological studies in humans. An imbalance in certain intestinal bacteria contributes to this negative correlation in mice, adds the article published in PNAS.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended not granting marketing authorization for Leqembi™ (lecanemab) for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) considers that its effect in delaying cognitive decline does not outweigh the risk of serious side effects associated with the drug, in particular swelling and possible bleeding in patients' brains. Leqembi™ was approved in 2023 in the United States.
Hormonal therapy to treat breast cancer is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia in women over 65, a study says. The retrospective analysis is based on data from more than 18,000 women with breast cancer in the US: two-thirds of them had received hormone therapy and one-third had not. The "protective effect" of hormone therapy declines with age and varies by ethnicity, adds the article published in JAMA Network Open.
A family of more than 1,000 members with origins in Colombia has a mutation called "paisa" that leads to the development of Alzheimer's disease. In 2019, an added mutation in the apoE gene called "Christchurch" was described as conferring strong protection to an individual carrying two copies of it. Now, a study has found that 27 family members carry a single copy and that it is also associated with some degree of protection. According to the authors, who publish their findings in the journal NEJM, the discovery could be used to develop new treatments for the disease.