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From the Department of Neurosciences (Drs. Thal and Tuszynski), University of California San Diego, La Jolla, and San Diego VAMC, San Diego, CA; Department of Neurological Research (Dr. Carta), Sigma Tau Pharmaceuticals, Rome, Italy; Division of Biostatistics (Drs. Clarke and Woolson), University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA; Department of Psychiatry (Dr. Ferris), New York University Medical Center, New York, NY; Alzheimer Center (Dr. Friedland), University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH; Mayo Clinic (Dr. Petersen), Rochester, MN; Department of Psychiatry (Dr. Pettegrew), University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA; Suncoast Gerontology Center (Dr. Pfeiffer), University South Florida Health Sciences Center, Tampa, FL; Department of Psychiatry (Dr. Raskind), University of Washington, Seattle, WA; and Department of Neurology (Dr. Sano), Columbia University, New York, NY.
Supported by Sigma Tau Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Received July 18, 1995. Accepted in final form February 28, 1996.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Leon J. Thal, Department of Neurosciences (0624), UCSD School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0624.
A 1-year, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, parallel-group study compared the efficacy and safety of acetyl-L-carnitine hydrochloride (ALCAR) with placebo in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD). Subjects with mild to moderate probable AD, aged 50 or older, were treated with 3 g/day of ALCAR or placebo (1 g tid) for 12 months. Four hundred thirty-one patients entered the study, and 83% completed 1 year of treatment.
The Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale cognitive component and the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale were the primary outcome measures.Overall, both ALCAR- and placebo-treated patients declined at the same rate on all primary and most secondary measures during the trial. In a subanalysis by age that compared early-onset patients (aged 65 years or younger at study entry) with late-onset patients (older than 66 at study entry), we found a trend for early-onset patients on ALCAR to decline more slowly than early-onset AD patients on placebo on both primary endpoints. In addition, early-onset patients tended to decline more rapidly than older patients in the placebo groups. Conversely, late-onset AD patients on ALCAR tended to progress more rapidly than similarly treated early-onset patients. The drug was very well tolerated during the trial.
The study suggests that a subgroup of AD patients aged 65 or younger may benefit from treatment with ALCAR whereas older individuals might do more poorly.However, these preliminary findings are based on post hoc analyses. A prospective trial of ALCAR in younger patients is underway to test the hypothesis that young, rapidly progressing subjects will benefit from ALCAR treatment.
NEUROLOGY 1996;47: 705-711
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