Graphic of cells in an Alzheimer's affected brain.

Study: Alzheimer’s drug shows modest success slowing declines in memory, thinking

By Jon Hamilton, NPR

An experimental drug that removes a substance called amyloid from the brain appears to slow down Alzheimer’s disease.

The drug, called lecanemab, reduced the rate of cognitive decline by 27% in a study of nearly 1,800 people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, scientists reported at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease meeting in San Francisco.

The study was published simultaneously in The New England Journal of Medicine.

People who got infusions of lecanemab scored about half a point better on a zero-to-18-point scale of mental functioning, a slight but statistically significant difference.

The results are “real and robust,” says Dr. Christopher van Dyck, who directs the Yale Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and presented an overview of the study at the meeting.

But Dr. Madhav Thambisetty of the National Institute on Aging, who was not involved in the study, called the results “a very small effect.”

“It’s very unlikely that these differences are going to be noticeable by individual patients in their everyday lives,” Thambisetty says.

Thambisetty emphasized that his views are his own, and that he is not speaking for the NIA, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Read more …