Farmakologiczne leczenie choroby Alzheimera — współczesne możliwości

Abstract

Approximately 46 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Treatments to prevent or slow down cognitive decline in AD remain an urgent therapeutic need. During the last decades the use of b secretase inhibitors as well as immunotherapy against Ab, antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents as well as natural products and many others have been investigated. Although considerable efforts have been made to develop more effective therapeutic agents for AD therapy, clinical trials failed to reach efficacy endpoints in improving cognitive function in most cases to date or have been terminated due to adverse events. Current pharmacotherapy of AD is still limited to cholinesterase inhibitors and the N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist memantine which were approved at the turn of the century. Despite critical opinions on the efficacy of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and memantine, it should be said that these drugs improve memory and other cognitive functions throughout most of the duration of the disease. As Memantine, and the AChEIs target two different aspects of AD pathology their complementary mechanisms offer superior benefit as combination therapy. Moreover preclinical studies have shown that memantine and AChEIs have neuroprotective effects.