Help may be closer for recently diagnosed Alzheimer?s patients if a new drug trial proves successful
in fighting the degenerative disease.
Baltimore?s Johns Hopkins Institute of Medicine is participating in the largest Alzheimer?s disease research study ever conducted and the first to offer a glimmer of hope for slowing or reversing the progress of the disease in its early stages.
Sheppard Pratt Hospital is one of 130 institutions around the world contracting with the bio-pharmaceutical company Myriad to test the drug Flurizan. The Phase 3 trial is the final step for FDA approval, and participants are being accepted now.
“We?re hoping that people with mild Alzheimer?s will notice a slowing or stopping of their cognitive decline,” said Dr. Marsden McGuire, one of the Sheppard Pratt doctors working on the study.
“If you can stop or even reverse some of the decline, it makes it much less burdensome for the caregivers.”
Doctors say they believe a buildup of toxic proteins called amyloid beta-42 on brain cells, leading to a progressive decline of brain function. Flurizan is supposed to block production of those proteins, preventing them from forming plaques in the brain.
“All the treatments we have now have not been proven to affect the disease process itself,” McGuire said. “The affect the symptoms and the use of existing capacity or brain cells.”
About 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer?s disease, and the number could reach 16 million by 2050. Often, as the disease progresses, they end up in the care of family members or institutionalized.
During the Flurizan study,
doctors will observe and interview the Alzheimer?s patients and their caregivers to monitor their progress.
In earlier trials, patients have reported a slowing of cognitive decline, with a few actually regaining memory that previously was lost, company spokeswoman Ashley Altieri said.
