Initial results of large scale trial into possible anti-Alzheimer's vaccine

Dr Richard Harvey, director of research, responds,

'It's very exciting to see the first glimpse of the results of the large scale trial of the anti-Alzheimer vaccine. However, great caution is needed as the results presented here represent only a 10% sample of those who took part in the trial - and a small sample makes it much more likely that the result seen is simply due to chance and not a real effect.

Nevertheless, if these results are confirmed in the report of the whole study, this would be very powerful evidence that the vaccine is having a real effect on the Alzheimer's disease in these people. Moreover, in the full study, more important outcome measures such as rate of brain tissue loss are being measured. Showing that the vaccine had slowed the loss of brain tissue associated with Alzheimer's disease would be the first evidence of a true disease modifying therapy.

The Alzheimer's Society's view remains that despite safety problems with this initial version of the vaccine, vaccine/immune based therapies still hold tremendous potential for delivering an effective treatment for this terrible disease.

The Alzheimer's Society is currently funding research into immunotherapy for Alzheimer's disease at the University of Cardiff.'