Hospital to test Alzheimer’s treatment

PROVIDENCE – A team at Rhode Island Hospital is testing an experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, which affects as many as 5 million Americans and remains, at this point, incurable.
The study, led locally by the hospital’s Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders Center, involves intravenous immune globulin (IVIg), also known as gammaglobulin, which has been used successfully for more than 20 years to treat autoimmune and immunodeficiency diseases.
Since the late 1990s, scientists have seen evidence that immunotherapy targeting the amyloid beta peptide – linked to the plaque buildup in Alzheimer’s patients’ brains – can be used to treat the disease, and two previous studies showed improved cognition with IVIg treatment.
This new study, a Phase III, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, is recruiting about 360 participants at about 38 sites nationwide, all with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. It is being led by the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study, of which Rhode Island Hospital is a member.
The local research team is led by Dr. Brian R. Ott, director of the hospital’s Alzheimer’s center and a professor in the department of neurology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, as well as a physician with the Neurology Foundation.
To qualify, participants must be 50 to 89 years old, have a study partner, be fluent in English or Spanish, be in generally good health, not have any other forms of dementia, and not have medical issues that might make IVIg treatment risky for them, such as serious heart disease.
For more information on the national study, go to www.adcs.org, or locally, call research coordinator Michele Astphan at (401) 444-2484.