[ExI] bexarotene papers

[spike]

Apparently bexarotene is a bust:

 

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/08/13166642-alzheimers-treatment-not
-the-hoped-for-miracle?lite

 

Damn.

 

spike

 

Alzheimer's treatment not the hoped for miracle

By Robert Bazell, Chief science and medical correspondent, NBC News

 

Robert Bazell, NBC News

A cancer drug is turning out not to be the miraculous treatment for
Alzheimer's that many had hoped. Two papers out Wednesday in the New England
Journal of Medicine warn families of Alzheimer's victims not to seek
treatment with Targretin (generic name: bexarotene). 

Last February a study from Case Western Reserve University reported that the
drug rapidly cleared the clumps of protein known as beta-amyloid, the
hallmark of Alzheimer's, from the brains of mice with a version of the
disease. Since the drug was already on the market, approved as a treatment
for lymphoma, doctors could immediately prescribe it in so-called off-label
use for Alzheimer's. And thousands of families understandably asked.

But one mouse study does not prove that a drug is effective in humans. The
drug is expensive - about $14,000 a year - and off-label use is often not
covered by insurance. The drug can also bring on severe side-effects. In one
paper in the Journal, Justin Lowenthal, Sara Hull and Steven Pearson of the
National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital conclude
that for this drug "even if the patients are willing to take the risks for
the potential benefit, the physician's answer should be no." In the second
paper Frank LaFerla of the University of California, Irvine observes "the
field has been down this road before, as successes in preclinical models
have thus far not translated well into the clinic."

 

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