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Together, the two small studies "give us strong encouragement," Relkin says. But, he stresses, it's way too soon to start treating Alzheimer's disease patients with IVIG.
For starters, doctors don't yet know how long a person has to stay on the treatment. And since IVIG is derived from blood of multiple donors, there's a limited supply. The cost is high: up to $7,000 a year at the doses used in the study -- about the same as dialysis for people with failing kidneys, he says.
If IVIG pans out in larger, longer studies, Relkin says he hopes to isolate the anti-amyloid antibody and use that to treat patients. "We could make a synthesized product that would be cheaper and in more ample supply," he says.
A More Targeted Approach to Alzheimer's
Lawrence S. Honig, MD, PhD, associate professor of clinical neurology at the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University in New York, agrees that treating Alzheimer's patients with beta amyloid-busting antibodies is a good idea.
But using IVIG -- which contains millions of human antibodies in addition to beta amyloid antibodies -- to treat the disease is like picking a random book off the shelf and hoping it's the one you want to read, he tells WebMD.
Honig is getting ready to test a new compound known as AAB-001, a more specific antibody that binds to and clears beta amyloid protein from the blood.
AAB-001, which is being developed by the Elan Corporation and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, is a synthetic, highly purified preparation of anti-beta amyloid antibodies," he says. "This more targeted approach makes a lot more sense."
SOURCES: American Academy of Neurology 57th Annual Meeting, Miami Beach, Fla., April 9-16, 2005. Norman R. Relkin, MD, director, Memory Disorders Program, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York. Lawrence S. Honig, MD, PhD, associate professor, clinical neurology, Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University, New York.