alzheimers news-whats the difference

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-WHATS THE DIFFERENCE 

there are three of these antibody treatments that are or will most likely will be approved by the fda for use in the early stage of alzheimers
they are
my drug aduhelm or aducanumab
lecanemab
donanemab

by this time next year all three of the first ones will be likely approved by the fda for use in mci or early alzheimers disease

will medicare medicaid or private insurance pay for them
no for aduhelm so far
that may change in the future when my study emabark is reported out by biogen in 2024

biogen and eisai both handle lecanemab and aduhelm

based on the data shown this week lecanemab is the best so far
it lowers memory decline by 27%
my drug aduhelm will probably show slowing of memory decline by about 22%

they both had aria or microbleeds as side effects
aducanumab is worse than lecanemab

my guess is that if i had to chose between the two right now i would chose lecanemab
its sort of the second generation of these antiamyloid antibody drugs

donanemab will probably be comparable to lecanemab
i havent seen any reports yet on how much its slowing memory decline
my guess its better than aducanumab but about the same as lecanemab
the risk for aria or microbleeds will probably be about the same as lecanemab
its also a second generation antiamyloid drug

usually second generation drugs work better and have less side effects than first generation drugs

my guess is aduhelm will fall out of use and one of these or both will become the most used one

as i wrote earlier this week in my blog on wednesday
i will have a decision to make
as of right now i probably will finish my biogen embark aduhelm study in 2024 and will switch to the one that appears to work the best with the fewer side effects and the less out of pocket costs

all 4 of these drugs are doing studies on patients who dont have symptoms but have positive biomarkers for alzheimers disease
ie positive blood tests and or positive spinal fluid for amyloid and tau and or positive amyloid pet scans and or tau pet scans

one study called the ahead study is using lecanemab in patients with prodromal alzheimers or prealzheimers
these folks have no symptoms but have these positive biomarkers

if you have a lot of risk factors for developing alzheimers you might look at getting in one of these studies
ie apoe 4 gene and or family history of alzheimers disease 

when i was 50 years old which is 10 years before i was diagnosed
my memory test was normal
if i had done genetic tests and biomarkers they probably would have been positive
i would not have hesitated to start one of these prealzheimers treatment studies

not even a second i would hesitate

one of the complaints i hear naysayers say is well there are these microbleeds or aria that can be serious

my answer to them
we in the alzheimers world dont care about that
we accept the risk
gladly

one lecanemab researcher said this

“If you ask patients what risk they’re willing to take with this disease, you may be surprised.”

substitute the work terminal cancer for alzheimers
if you were offered to find out you had terminal cancer at 50 and could take an experimental treatment to prolong your life maybe for another 10-20 years 
would you take it
yep i would

and

yep i am taking a drug that will probably help against the terminal alzheimers disease i have

the organicgreen doctor