Study Suggests Anti-Amyloid Therapy Could Delay Alzheimer’s Symptoms in Some Patients

Recent research has illuminated the potential of anti-amyloid therapies in delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms, particularly among genetically predisposed individuals. A clinical trial revealed that participants who received an anti-amyloid drug demonstrated a significant reduction in the risk of developing cognitive decline—from nearly 100% to approximately 50% over an eight-year period . This finding supports the amyloid hypothesis, which posits that amyloid plaques play a crucial role in Alzheimer’s pathology. The results from this study are promising and suggest that early interventions may be key to altering disease trajectories.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine led the study, which aimed to test whether an experimental anti-amyloid drug called gantenerumab could help people with an inherited form of Alzheimer’s. In a subset of patients treated the longest, the drug appeared to reduce their risk of developing symptoms as expected, by 50%. The findings will require a follow-up, but outside experts are cautiously optimistic about what this could mean for the future of treating Alzheimer’s.

“The results make it clear that there is good hope that treatment of [Alzheimer’s] pathology in the preclinical stages of pathology may be effective at slowing or preventing disease onset,” Thomas M. Wisniewski, the director of the Center for Cognitive Neurology at NYU Langone Health, who is not affiliated with the research, told Gizmodo.

The study authors believe that if people are started on therapy early enough and stay on it for enough time, it could forestall the development of the disease — perhaps for years.

It’s “the first data to suggest that there’s a possibility of a significant delay in the onset of progression to symptoms,” said Dr. Eric McDade, a professor of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study.

Published in The Lancet Neurology, the new study looked at 73 adults who inherited the faulty gene.

All participants had either no or very mild cognitive decline - a precursor to dementia - and were between 15 years before and 10 years after their expected age of Alzheimer's onset, based on family history.

Each person in the study received gantenerumab, a monoclonal antibody drug in development by Hoffmann-La Roche. 

Moreover, another study published in “Lancet Neurology” corroborated these findings by highlighting the efficacy of gantenerumab, an amyloid-lowering drug. In this study, participants who began treatment prior to symptom onset also experienced a halving of their risk for developing Alzheimer’s symptoms. However, it is essential to approach these results with caution due to the small sample size and absence of a placebo control group. Further research is necessary to validate these initial findings and explore long-term effects.

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Sarah H

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