Alzheimer's Treatment Mooted

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 9, 2008 @11:15AM from the important-progress dept.

aminorex writes "Enbrel (etanercept) has been immediately, markedly, and consistently effective in all Alzheimer's patients, according to a report in Science Daily. The original research article is available online at the Journal of Neuroinflammation web site. "We can see cognitive and behavioral improvement in a patient with established dementia within minutes of therapeutic intervention" comments one Journal editor." "All Alzheimer's patients" may be over-optimistic, but according to the article, though the research it concerns has been heavily focused on a single patient, "many other patients with mild to severe Alzheimer's received the treatment and all have shown sustained and marked improvement."

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How about a study with n1? by Ichoran · 2008-01-09 11:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm really not sure why this "study" was worth publishing. Where are the statistics of patient status after injection of drug vs. injection of drug-free control? How about a timecourse? Or anything besides anecdotes from one patient?

The hype on the article compared to what is shown is shocking. Even if the compound is a silver bullet that instantly and completely reverses Alzheimer's, you'd never know it from a paper like this. So this is an essentially useless bit of PR.