September 3, 2018 – Removing Amyloid

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: A treatment for Alzheimer’s disease seems to offer modest benefit, Elizabeth Tracey reports

A drug that’s been under investigation for some time has finally produced some modest benefit in removing the substance called amyloid from the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease and improving their cognition, a recent study found. Constantine Lyketsos, an Alzheimer’s expert at Johns Hopkins, comments.

Lyketsos: The hope is that over time, that benefit although small over the first 18 months, might accumulate and grow, so that at 5 or 6 or 10 years you would have a substantial benefit. So the upshot is the amyloid hypothesis that was almost lying dead is probably breathing a little bit better right now, but we still need to see what’s going to happen. Remember, dramatic removal of amyloid minimal improvement. :27

Lyketsos notes that it seems increasingly clear that the accumulation of amyloid is just one part of the Alzheimer’s development cascade, and one that may not be important for everyone, so identifying who’s likely to benefit is needed. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.