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While it has been closely followed for several months for its positive effects on cognitive decline, lecanemab, a treatment developed by the Japanese pharmaceutical group Eisai and the American Biogen has confirmed its effectiveness but also certain side effects to be taken into account. .
It is a hope against Alzheimer’s that we were already echoing last september 29. The Eisai and Biogen laboratories then announced that they wanted to file a marketing authorization request for a promising drug – lecanemab – with the European and American health authorities. According to a study conducted over 18 months, it succeeded in reducing the cognitive decline of patients by 27%.
Lecanemab results confirmed
This Wednesday, November 30, even more detailed and more precise results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Results based on 1,800 people followed for 18 months. All had amyloid deposits present in the brain.
Among them, some of the participants received, intravenously, a dose of the drug Lecanemab of 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks, for 18 months. The other part with a placebo. According to the publication of this November 30, the 27% reduction in cognitive decline in treated patients is confirmed.
Better documented side effects
The complete study also specifies the incidence rates of adverse effects that are sometimes serious and more frequent than in the group of patients on placebo. Thus 17.3% of patients treated with lecanemab suffered from cerebral hemorrhages compared to 9% in the placebo group. 12.6% of people who received this experimental drug also suffered from cerebral edema, compared to just 1.7% in the placebo group. The overall mortality rate is however almost the same in the two groups of patients in the study: 0.7% in people treated with lecanemab, 0.8% for those on placebo.
“A treatment option” finally?
“It’s the first drug that delivers a real treatment option for people with Alzheimer’s.”welcomed Bart De Strooper, director of the British Institute for Dementia Research. Although the clinical benefits appear somewhat limited, they can be expected to become more apparent if the drug is administered over a longer period.
Alzheimer’s disease is a major public health problem that affects more than 40 million people, particularly in Western countries where populations are aging. In this disease, two key proteins called “tau” and “beta-amyloid” accumulate abnormally in the brain, killing brain cells. Lecanemab precisely targets the deposits of the beta-amyloid protein which it can “clean up”, but only at the early stages of the disease. Screening thus promises to be another key issue in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. It is today diagnosed too late after the appearance of symptoms which already reflect a certain stage of the disease.