Antibodies Could be
Used to Treat Alzheimer's Disease - IVIG Blood Antibody Treatment
Provides Lasting Benefits
July 18th 2006
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New Hope |
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New York researchers say that a mixture of purified human antibodies,
called intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), provides lasting benefits to
patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). They say this is the first
study that shows that IVIg stabilizes or improves cognitive function in
Alzheimer patients when administered over a period of a year or more.
The compound bonds to beta amyloid (AB), which many researchers believe
is a central component causing plaque buildup in the brains of
Alzheimer’s patients. They believe that the IVIg compound helps clear
the AB from the brain and even helps block AB’s toxic effects.
The IVIg compound has been available for 30 years and the FDA has
approve IVIg for treating several immune disorders. It has been used by
hundreds of thousands of patients.
An earlier study showed that IVIg improved or stabilized the cognitive
test scores of eight patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. The
patients began to decline when the IVIg treatment was stopped.
Basia Adamiak said “The majority of the Alzheimer patients in our study
remained at or above their baseline level of cognitive performance 18
months after they first received IVIg." Adamiak is coordinator of the
study at the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
The researchers decided to resume IVIg at a low dose in a nine-month
open-label extension study. IVIg was given to the test subjects every
other week and was well-tolerated by all eight patients. Six of the
eight patients benefited clinically from the resumption of IVIg.
Over the years scientists have become more suspicious of BA as being the
cause or an target for their research. Dr. Norman Relkin, director of
the Memory Disorders Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell said
"The persisting clinical benefits we see as IVIg decreases spinal fluid
amyloid levels suggests that beta amyloid is the right target for the
next generation of Alzheimer treatments.”
Marsha Quinn
Health Writer
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