Cost seen as main obstacle for Alzheimer's studies

Researchers are establishing a gene bank to help target people at highest risk for the disease.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Aug. 2, 2004.

Washington -- There are barriers to conducting an Alzheimer's disease prevention trial that researchers would like to see at least lowered before the incidence of the disease swells with the aging population and overwhelms the health care system.

Prevention studies in general are costly, typically priced at about $20 million. Those for Alzheimer's carry additional burdens. First, they require the recruitment of thousands of elderly participants. They also involve numerous site visits for extensive psychosocial testing over several years.

Thus, researchers urgently are seeking ways to trim costs and size requirements. The bottom line: People are living longer, and nearly half of those older than 85 will have the disease that now affects more than 4.5 million Americans.

"We are right at the beginning of an epidemic of Alzheimer's disease," said William Thies, PhD, vice president for medical and scientific affairs at the Alzheimer's Assn. "We don't have time to do four sequential 10-year trials because that will be 40 years out, and you are going to have so many people with Alzheimer's disease that you will have bankrupted the health care system."

Researchers for the Alzheimer's Disease Anti-inflammatory Prevention Trial -- ADAPT -- are very familiar with the obstacles facing trial enrollment. ADAPT, which began in 2000, is attempting to enroll 4,000 individuals older than 70 who have a family history of Alzheimer's-like dementia but who themselves are not cognitively impaired. These participants must also be physically healthy enough to participate in a long-term trial and potentially be exposed to two nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs. It's a tall order.