Survival time in Alzheimerâs disease: An overlooked measure of safety and efficacy of disease-modifying therapies

Recent literature has highlighted 3 major categories of arguments for and against modification of the underlying disease process in Alzheimerâs disease (AD) We argue that theory is over-reliant on theories of disease modification based solely on brain positron emission tomography ( PET ) imaging and blood biomarkers of tau and AÎ peptides.

Here, we instead focus on a historically-grounded empirical criterion from other fields of medicine to overcome weak interpretations.

There is no consensus on what we mean by the benefit/risk measure of anti-amyloid immunotherapies.

Lecanemab , now being approved in China , Israel , Japan , and the USA , but nowhere else, raises the question: How is it possible the same clinical trial data can be interpreted so differently, as providing experimental evidence to argue both for and against the efficacy and safety of lecanemab in human use?.

This is perhaps related to the ambiguity about whether AD is fatal, since in most cases, patients with severe AD die of secondary complications resulting from inadequate personal care and immobility.

We argue that acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine) and/or memantine should increase ST more than supposedly âsymptomaticâ treatments.