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Aviri t1_iyb3zld wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Alzheimer's drug lecanemab hailed as momentous breakthrough by Methoszs

It's very expensive, isn't broadly or powerfully effective, and regularly causes severe enough side effects people on it will require regular(also expensive) testing to ensure they don't die from them.

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redditmydna t1_iyb4eat wrote

So, forget it, then.

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AnselmFox t1_iybh96g wrote

It doesn’t do anything… so for yrs we’ve noted increased amyloid plaque buildup with Alzheimer’s. And so there was a line of reasoning (widely accepted) suggesting the buildup may be part of a causal relationship with cognitive decline. This medicine does what it is what targeted to do- but it turns out amyloid buildup may not play the role we thought (as the medicine doesn’t do anything for the actual symptoms). So it’s cool in that it makes us think about lines of inquiry being off the mark, but I wouldn’t prescribe it to any of my Alzheimer’s pts.-because again it doesn’t actually help

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SingularityPrime t1_iybrn2a wrote

They estimated 19 more months of independent living. There's quite the discrepancy between what you're saying and what they're saying.

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AnselmFox t1_iybyggf wrote

No “they” don’t. The phase 3 shows almost no real change in symptoms vs control groups…1.6 vs 1.2 change in score (out of 18) on Alzheimer’s battery used (CDRSB) and over an 18 months— (calling that a 27% change in symptom progression is disingenuous- yes it’s “statistically significant” but in reality that’s the difference between a 1/2 point in scoring on some domain of the battery over a yr and a 1/2 of treatment) and nowhere is it suggested in the actual data that there are “19 months more of independent living”— maybe the stock prospectus says that though! It’s a crock of shit. This is a media blitz. Anyway don’t take my word the study is published if you can sift through the bias in it

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CatumEntanglement t1_iycaabv wrote

Thank you, thank you, thank you. As someone on the research side of human neurodegenerative diseases, this drug is, as you say...a crock of shit.

As an aside, all patients classified with idopathic/sporadic AD (which are 95% of cases) showed no change in the CDRSB scoring. This drug is no better than a placebo IMO. A very expensive ($30k-50k) placebo that has to be infused into the CSF and causes brain bleeds in 17% of patients. The only true significant thing this drug does is give people brain bleeds.

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