Secondary Prevention Trials in Alzheimer Disease

Primary and secondary prevention trials in coronary heart disease.

Secondary prevention antibiotic treatment trials for coronary artery disease.

Considerable interest was generated in the possible causative role of Chlamydia pneumoniae in coronary artery disease (CAD) by the publication of a small pilot study in London of antibiotic treatment of CAD that reduced coronary events.1 Persons familiar with antibiotic treatment of chlamydia were skeptical that the brief treatment schedule in the London trial (azithromycin either one or two co...

Atrophy Rates in Asymptomatic Amyloidosis: Implications for Alzheimer Prevention Trials

There is considerable interest in designing therapeutic studies of individuals at risk of Alzheimer disease (AD) to prevent the onset of symptoms. Cortical β-amyloid plaques, the first stage of AD pathology, can be detected in vivo using positron emission tomography (PET), and several studies have shown that ~1/3 of healthy elderly have significant β-amyloid deposition. Here we assessed whether...

Predicting positivity for a new era of Alzheimer disease prevention trials.

Neurology 2012;79:1530–1531 Alzheimer disease (AD) pathophysiology likely begins years prior to the emergence of clinical symptoms. Biomarker studies suggest deposition of cerebral amyloid may be a necessary and early component of the AD pathophysiologic process.1 The advent of amyloid imaging techniques with the introduction of Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) in 20042 promised the identification o...

Randomized controlled trials for Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease.

The continuous increase in elderly and oldest-old population, and subsequent rise in prevalence of chronic neurological diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), are a major challenge for healthcare systems. These two conditions are the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases in older persons and physicians should engage treatment for these patients. In this field, ...