By Kate Kelland LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) – Pfizer’s dementia drug Aricept, already commonly used to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, can also aid patients with severe disease and should be used more widely and for longer, according to research published on Wednesday. British scientists who studied the imaginable longer-term benefits of giving Aricept suggested that extending treatment could aid twice as many Alzheimer’s sufferers worldwide. The study also looked at another commonly used dementia drug called memantine, which is sold in the United States under the brand Namenda by Forest Laboratories and Germany’s Merz, and in Britain under the brand Ebixa by Danish collection Lundbeck . It found that keeping patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s on Aricept, or donepezil as it is known generically, or starting them on memantine treatment, meant they had significantly bigger cognitive and function abilities than patients taking a placebo or dummy pill. An estimated 18 million human beings worldwide suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common form of dementia. It is fatal brain disease that affects reminiscence, thinking, behaviour and the ability to handle daily activities and is placing an increasingly heavy burden on societies and economies across the earth. According to the Earth Health Organisation, some 35 million human beings worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer’s Disease International predicts that as populations age, dementia cases will nearly double every 20 years to encircling 66 million in 2030 and 115 million in 2050. The study, published in the Fresh England Journal of Medicine, involved 295 Alzheimer’s patients in Britain who were assigned to one of four separate groups – one continuing to capture donepezil, one stopping donepezil and getting a placebo, one stopping donepezil and starting memantine, and a fourth taking both drugs together. Robert Howard, a professor at King’s College London who led the trial, said it was the first to exhibit the value of continued drug treatment for patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s. While donepezil is commonly prescribed for patients in the early stages of the disease, doctors in some countries, including Britain, are advised to stop prescribing the drug to patients once their disease has progressed to become more severe. “As patients progress to more severe forms of Alzheimer’s disease, clinicians are faced with a dense choice as to whether to continue or not with dementia drugs and, until immediately, there has been small evidence to guide that choice,” Howard told reporters at a briefing abut his findings. “(However immediately) we have robust and compelling evidence that treatment with these drugs can continue to aid patients at the later, more severe stages.” The researchers found that patients taking Aricept were bigger able to remember, know, communicate and perform daily tasks for at least a year longer than those who stopped taking it. The improvements were noticeable to patients, and their carers and doctors, Howard said. While the effects were slightly smaller, the study also found that patients who started memantine treatment also had significantly bigger cognitive functional abilities that those on a placebo.Glance at More…
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