A twice-daily tablet regularly used by the NHS could slow or even reverse certain forms of incurable dementia, a study has claimed.
Nilotinib, a blood cancer medicine, was previously shown to improve movement and mental function in a small group of patients with Parkinson’s disease-related dementia and Lewy body dementia during a 2015 trial.
For some patients, the £2,000-a-year drug appeared to even reverse dementia symptoms – with one woman regaining the ability to feed herself and three nonverbal patients speaking again.
Now a larger trial involving 43 participants has confirmed that nilotinib can improve balance, cognition and memory in patients with Lewy body dementia – a form of dementia caused by protein deposits known as Lewy bodies which develop in the brain.
Experts believe nilotinib – which works by blocking the production of new cells in the body – is able to enter the brain and reduce the build-up of these toxic proteins.
A new daily tablet available through the NHS could slow or even reverse certain forms of cancer (file photo)
It is thought a similar effect is seen with people with Parkinson’s dementia – a form of memory and cognition loss triggered by the degenerative brain condition – as these patients also experience build-ups of Lewy bodies.
Significantly, some experts even argue the pill could slow the progression of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, which despite billions of pounds of funding and decades of research remains incurable.
‘It appears nilotinib is able to modify some of the key abnormal proteins in the brain that cause dementia, stalling cognitive decline in patients,’ says Dr John-Paul Taylor, professor of translational dementia at Newcastle University and a Lewy body dementia specialist.
Dementia affects about a million people in the UK. The majority of them suffer with Alzheimer’s, while about 100,000 have dementia with Lewy bodies and roughly 90,000 have Parkinson’s dementia.
All forms are incurable and, until recently, there were no drugs that could hold it off.
In the past two years, two new Alzheimer’s drugs have been shown in trials to slow progression by as much as a third. These infusions, lecanemab and donanemab, attack a protein in the brain called amyloid plaque.
However, earlier this year the NHS announced it would not fund either treatment, as the benefit was not considered significant enough to warrant the high cost.
There are also concerns about the safety of both drugs after it was revealed a number of patients experienced dangerous brain bleeds, leading to several deaths.
However, the latest study, carried out at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, opens up the possibility of a safer and cheaper alternative.
Nilotinib is currently used by the NHS for chronic myeloid leukaemia – a rare type of cancer that affects the bone marrow and white blood cells. The drug is taken in capsule form twice a day.
While all patients were deemed to have mild to moderate dementia at the start of the study, those taking nilotinib saw their cognitive assessment score – which measures attention, memory, language and orientation – improve by nearly 15 per cent.
Caregivers for patients taking nilotinib also reported that behavioural symptoms such as irritability and apathy improved.
Some argue the pill could even slow down the development of Alzheimer’s, for which there is currently no cure (file photo)
And the nilotinib group experienced 70 per cent fewer falls – which researchers believe may be due to their improved cognition.
Crucially, participants did not report any adverse reactions to the medication.
‘All the biomarkers and all the clinical and cognitive outcomes were moving in the correct direction,’ said study investigator and Georgetown neurology professor Dr Raymond Scott Turner.
Professor Taylor says: ‘Nilotinib is a very intriguing, positive and promising signal for a group of patients with very few treatment options.
‘If you have a disease-modifying drug, it usually may not make you better, but it won’t make you worse. What’s interesting with this one is that you’re not just not getting worse, you’re actually improving.’