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A drug appears to slow the brain's death and preserve mental function in patients with Alzheimer's disease, a study shows.
Developing such a treatment is one of the biggest challenges in medicine.
But serious scientific questions remain as the drug - LMTX - inexplicably works only in patients not taking other dementia pills.
The data on 891 patients was presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Toronto.
Overall, the trial - which treated patients for 15 months - was a flop, as there appeared to be no benefit to taking LMTX.
However, an analysis on just the 15% of the patients who had not already been taking drugs to help manage their symptoms showed a benefit.
In this tiny subset of patients, tests showed thinking power was maintained and MRI scans found the death of brain cells was reduced.
Yet there are certainly too few patients in the sub-group to be certain of the drug's effect.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36906554
Developing such a treatment is one of the biggest challenges in medicine.
But serious scientific questions remain as the drug - LMTX - inexplicably works only in patients not taking other dementia pills.
The data on 891 patients was presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Toronto.
Overall, the trial - which treated patients for 15 months - was a flop, as there appeared to be no benefit to taking LMTX.
However, an analysis on just the 15% of the patients who had not already been taking drugs to help manage their symptoms showed a benefit.
In this tiny subset of patients, tests showed thinking power was maintained and MRI scans found the death of brain cells was reduced.
Yet there are certainly too few patients in the sub-group to be certain of the drug's effect.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36906554