Drugs looking for a disease
 

I have a new favorite advocacy site in the Public Library of Science Medicine. It's a peer review open-access journal where researchers publish original research or <gasp> educated criticisms of current research exposing biases or flaws in research design, and they share it for FREE- no screw you unless you have $50 to view the entire article for a day. For a librarian, it's a breath of fresh air.

In looking up some specific info on the supposed role of cholinesterase inhibitors in PD, I ran across this alarming bit of info in the current push to market AD anti-dementia drugs for use in PD; this is a copy/paste from the article which can be found in its entirety right here:

From: "Cholinesterase Inhibitors; Drugs Looking for a Disease"
Maggini, M. et al. 2006.


If the results of these trials are not carefully evaluated, together with evaluating the methodological quality of the studies, this could lead to inappropriate prescribing of cholinesterase inhibitors. Drug companies have invested heavily in developing treatments for Alzheimer disease, and then were actively involved in expanding the market to other forms of dementia. In the last decade, donepezil, galantamine, and rivastigmine have been tested not only in patients with Alzheimer disease but also in patients with vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, dementia associated with Parkinson disease, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Even when the evidence on the efficacy of these drugs is lacking, or inconclusive, the results are often presented in such a way as to create a false perception of efficacy. For example, about 23 different scales or instruments (on average six per trial) were used, in the trials considered here, as primary or secondary outcome measures. Most of them were not validated for the disease for which the drugs were tested and are not currently used in clinical practice, undermining the translation of these research findings into clinical practice. Moreover, the treatment effect in the trials is usually expressed through the average change from baseline in test scores, without discussing the clinical importance of the usually small effect size observed.

-Laura

A gathering
 

FDA approves Exelon to treat dementia of Parkinson’s disease

• Drug News • Jun 28, 2006

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Exelon (rivastigmine tartrate) for the treatment of mild to moderate dementia (chronic loss or impairment of intellectual capacity) associated with Parkinson’s .......

Exelon is manufactured by Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. in East Hanover, NY.

Parkinson's disease dementia. Exelon, the first drug indicated for this condition, has previously been approved as a therapeutic for Alzheimer's disease.

"It's been recognized for almost a decade that the dementia of patients with Parkinson's disease differs from the dementia of patients with Alzheimer's," said Dr. Steven Galson, Director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, "but until now, there has been no treatment that has been shown to be effective specifically for the dementia associated with Parkinson's Disease. Today's approval of Exelon helps to fill this medical need."

Exelon is a choline esterase inhibitor, which works by increasing the levels on acetylcholine in the brain. It has already secured marketing authorization in Europe and according to a Forbes news report, has already been approved to treat Parkinson's Disease dementia in 14 other countries.
which is it - they don't actually know?? or are they lying??


AFX News Limited
Novartis' Exelon cleared by US FDA for Parkinson's disease dementia
06.28.2006, 02:04 AM
Patients treated with Exelon also had less deterioration in their ability to perform activities of daily living than patients who received placebo. Patients enrolled in the study had mild to moderately severe dementia, which developed at least two years after they were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. dementia after two years????? do alzheimers progress that fast because we don't.......open your eyes here please.....this is bull****

Exelon was granted European marketing authorization for this indication in March 2006. It has also been approved to treat Parkinson's disease dementia in 14 other countries around the world.

why?

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2006...fx2845132.html

I'm just getting started.

not effective anyway
 

Media reports this week have tried to skew studies of ginko biloba, saying it is not effective....yet a recent study in Germany, which reviewed several years' worth of studies on ginko, found the opposite, and that in fact, ginko was "as effective as the drugs being marketed for cognitive decline".

Now, that may be saying the same thing: NEITHER are really effective, but let's not lie to folk and try to tell them the dementia drugs work. Like everyone here, I do a lot of research and have yet to read anyone for whom the dementia drugs have really worked.

I have, however, read remarkable reviews of Enbrel, where they inject it into the neck and the Alz. patient has improved, usually within minutes to an hour!...there are threads already here about this. But Enbrel (an anti-inflammatory, if I am not mistaken) is already out there, not new, so next to nothing is reported about these patients. I think this drug also goes by the name Entanercept, or something like that.