WASHINGTON, D.C.: The onset of Alzheimer’s disease could be delayed by as much as a decade using drugs to be trialled on Victorian patients in a world-first study.
Melbourne scientists need about 600 healthy older adults to volunteer for brain scans that could help transform the treatment of the disorder.
Those showing early signs of deterioration will be given medication researchers believe could slow memory loss.
Laureate Professor Colin Masters, from the University of Melbourne and The Florey Institute, will lead the Australian leg of the US-based clinical trial.
“This is the first groundbreaking study to demonstrate whether we can delay onset by several years, at least five or 10 years,” he said.
Prof Masters said the build-up of a protein called amyloid — a byproduct of regular brain functioning — had long been known to cause Alzheimer’s disease.
“In old age there appears to be a failure of machinery to get it out of the brain,” he said. “This is the principle, underlying mechanism which causes the brain to degenerate.”
It has only been in recent years the accumulation of amyloid could be detected in its early stages, using brain scans.
“We can pick it up 10, 20 years before the onset of memory loss,” Prof Masters said.
“What we’re trialling now is using an antibody and other drugs to help get (amyloid) out of the brain.”
Prof Masters said in trials involving people already affected by Alzheimer’s disease, the drugs had slowed down memory decline by 30 per cent.
“We are hoping that the earlier we go, the more effective the drug will be,” he said.
“We’re hoping for a minimum delay of five years.”
Prof Masters said about 600 “healthy people with no memory loss”, aged 65-85, were needed for brain scans to begin the A4 Study.
From those, 100 people — with above-normal levels of amyloid — will be recruited for the five-year trial. They will be required to make monthly visits to Austin Health’s repatriation hospital in Heidelberg for ongoing monitoring.
The Victorian volunteers will join 1000 others at various centres across the US.