Immunoglobulins might be promising treatment for Alzheimer's disease

'There has been a lot of excitement about vaccine approaches to treating Alzheimer's disease using active and passive vaccine approaches against beta-amyloid, a protein that is deposited in the brain in people with Alzheimer's disease. This approach proved to be very effective in animal studies, leading to a clinical trial involving about 200 people with Alzheimer's disease.

Unfortunately, although the vaccine appears to clear some of the protein from the brain, a substantial minority of participants in the trial developed a serious complication called encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), with two people dying. Therefore a lot of effort has been directed at trying to further develop this vaccine treatment approach to enable it to be used safely.

The current study reported in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry involved five patients with early Alzheimer's disease who were given monthly intravenous injections, over a period of six months, of immunoglobulin containing antibodies against beta peptide. The treatment appeared to be well tolerated and reduced the amount of beta-amyloid protein in the spinal fluid.

Whilst this is very encouraging, the safety and effectiveness of this specific type of vaccine treatment needs to be carefully examined in a larger trial.'

Professor Clive Ballard
Director of research