From the LVRJ: During the decade 2002-2012, the failure rate for drugs developed to treat Alzheimer’s disease was a woeful 99.6 percent, a study released today by the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health reveals.
That analysis, which found that one drug showed effectiveness while 244 others failed, is the first-ever conducted of clinical trials for a disease that is expected to leave millions of baby boomers with dementia in the next few decades.
What the paper, “Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Development Pipeline: Few Candidates, Frequent Failures,” also substantiates, according to the lead researcher, is that there are “disturbingly few new drugs in the pipeline.”
There are now “only about 80 drugs being tested,” according to Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, Ruvo Center director and lead author of the study that appears in the journal Alzheimer’s Research &Therapy. “When you compare that to the 300 drugs being tested to fight cancer, that isn’t much when you consider what this disease is doing and what it’s going to do.”
Alzheimer’s currently affects about 6 million Americans, with the number expected to increase to 16 million by 2050. The costs of care are projected to rise from $200 billion today to $1.1 trillion in 2050. http://www.reviewjournal.com/life/health/alzheimer-s-drugs-not-working-according-ruvo-center-study
While all disease is bad, I don't there cannot be much argument that Alzheimer's and dementia is probably the cruelest and worst disease out there. It robs people of their mind and then physically attacks them so a person ends up bed ridden with no mind. They resort to being a infant.
I have worked with dementia and Alzheimer patients in nursing homes and the disease is bad enough but usually the family abandons the victim as well. What disease is crueler than that? AIDS, Parkinson's, cancer, heart disease? Not even close. With those diseases, at least they still have their mind, for the most part.
And to see that hardly any medication can help the patient has to be devastating to the researchers and patients and their families.
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your wrote: "usually the family abandons the victim as well"
ReplyDeleteBeen there, done that. Now I do K9 therapy. People remember a dog much longer than they remember family members.