Dementia: Is LMTX a major breakthrough?

The Week: LMTX slows Alzheimer's progression - but it doesn't work on everyone and experts are urging caution

LMTX is taken twice a day in tablet form. In the trial, it was used to treat 891 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's for 18 months, with the results presented at a conference in Toronto, Canada. It is the first time a major drug trial has targeted tau tangles – abnormal clumps of protein that disrupt brain function – instead of beta-amyloid, a different type of protein that forms plaques as it accumulates in the brain, the New Scientist reports.

The discovery was hailed by many, with the US Alzheimer's Association describing it as "a significant event" in the history of dementia research. "In a field that has been plagued by consistent failures of novel drug candidates in late-stage clinical trials and where there has been no practical therapeutic advance for over a decade, I am excited," said Dr Serge Gauthier, the director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Unit at McGill University, Canada.Others, however, have urged caution. Alzheimer's Research UK's Dr David Reynolds said he was concerned LMTX appeared not to work alongside other medications. "The data suggests it is slowing down the disease, but the important caveat is these small numbers," he said. "It is encouraging, but we need more data and will have to run a study with it as just a monotherapy [on its own]," he added. "It will still be years from reaching patients, even assuming it works."

Dr Rachelle Doody, the director of the Alzheimer's disease and Memory Disorders Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, was even more pessimistic. "To present it to the public now as a promising approach seems unjustified," she told the New York Times.

British Geriatrics Society

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Dementia: Is LMTX a major breakthrough?