preliminary: single man's Alzheimer sx helped immediately by anti-TNF

January 25, 2008

Apparently this study was done just to assess the " instant " effect of

anti-TNF treatment, which had been noticed clinically in the past. The

treatment was already studied over 6 months with the results published

in April 2006:

" In contrast to the standard cognitive decline one would historically

expect to see during a 6-month observation period, the data of this

study suggest that the 15-patient cohort treated with ongoing weekly

perispinal etanercept experienced a sustained and significant

improvement in cognition, as documented by each of the primary

efficacy variables, MMSE, ADAS-Cog, and SIB. The cohort's improvement

is in contrast to the known decline of ADAS-Cog by 7 points per year,

and the average decline in MMSE of 3.3 points per year, which occurs

in untreated populations.[45,46] Nonetheless, the small study size and

uncontrolled nature of the treatment point to the need for randomized

controlled trial data to confirm the findings of this study. "

4

I don't know why it's taking so long to publish a randomized trial?

Maybe they are aiming to stop progression for longer than 6 months. Or

maybe it's just the usual annoying bureaucratic and publication review

delays.

I don't understand how this " extrathecal perispinal " injection moves

this huge glob of protein into the brain, but whatev.

This is good news for those of us who have diseases that may be

largely intra-brain. That pathogenic picture seems to be a possibility

for CFS, since peripheral immunological measures studied to date are

not consistently abnormal, in contrast to MS, Behcet's, what have you.

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