A small, 18-month study conducted by the American Academy of Neurology found that patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease showed a significant slowing in cognitive decline as well as reduction in ventricular enlargement, a consequence of brain atrophy, after intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment. IVIG is also used for treatment of immune deficiencies, inflammatory diseases and acute infections.
“This is the first Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial to report a correlation between long-term treatment benefits and lower ventricular enlargement rates,” said Norman Relkin, MD of Cornell Weill College of Medicine in New York City. According to Relkin, those who participated in the study had a mean 46% reduction in growth of ventricular space.
This study follows a study done in 2005 by the same researchers at the New York – Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The previous clinical study was one of the first to demonstrate that IVIG helps with cognitive function, generating a lot of interest, which led to further study. IVIG has been safely used to treat other diseases for years; it is only recently that it has been tested for cognitive improvement in Alzheimer’s.
While researchers have yet to confirm that IVIG is an appropriate treatment for Alzheimer’s patients, these studies do offer some hope.
If you have questions about these studies or Alzheimer’s, visit the Alzheimer’s Association at http://www.alz.org/index.asp.
Sources:
Med Page Today: http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AAN/19540
Bio Rx: http://www.Igforalzheimers.com/
New York Presbyterian Hospital: http://nyp.org/news/hospital/1060.html
Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons