Terapia antiamiloide: uma nova estratégia para tratamento da doença de Alzheimer / Antiamyloid therapy: a new strategy for treating Alzheimer's disease

A doença de Alzheimer é a patologia neurodegenerativa mais frequente associada à idade, cujas manifestações cognitivas e neuropsiquiátricas resultam em deficiência progressiva e incapacitação. Existem vários tipos de terapias farmacológicas que visam melhorar a qualidade de vida do paciente afetado por esta patologia. Muitos medicamentos são usados há muito tempo para o tratamento da doença, sendo os inibidores da colinesterase as drogas de primeira escolha para o tratamento, mas nenhum deles regride a progressão da doença de Alzheimer. Novos estudos têm sido realizados, com o objetivo de procurar um novo medicamento que seja capaz de ajudar em sua regressão. Ainda, novos tratamentos, como a terapêutica antiamiloide, são opções que estão sendo observados para uma melhor terapêutica. Estes tratamentos são descritos nesta revisão, que teve como objeitvo analisar os benefícios do tratamento da doença de Alzheimer, por meio da terapêutica antiamiloide, em que se enquadra a imunoterapia.(AU)

Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder associated with age, whose cognitive and neuropsychiatric manifestations result in progressive disability and incapacitation. There are several types of pharmacological therapies aimed at improving the patient's quality of life affected by this disease. Many medications have long been used for the treatment of the disease, with cholinesterase inhibitors being the drugs of first choice for the treatment but none of them regress the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Further studies have been made to search a new drug able to assist in the regression of the disease. In addition, new therapies such as the anti-amyloid one are options that are being observed to improve treatment. These therapies are described in this review, which aims at analyzing the benefits of anti-amyloid therapy for Alzheimer's disease, in which immunotherapy is included.(AU)

Cien años de la enfermedad de Alzheimer: La inmunoterapia ¿una esperanza? / One hundred years of Alzheimer's disease: Immunotherapy a hope?

In 1906 Alois Alzheimer, described the cerebral lesions characteristic of the disorder that received his name: senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is now, 100 years after, the most prevalent form of dementia in the world. The longer life expectancy and aging of the population renders it as a serious public health problem of the future. Urgent methods of diagnosis and treatment are required, since the definitive diagnosis of AD continues to be neuropathologic. In the last 30 years several drugs have been approved to retard the progression of the disease; however, there are still no curative or preventive treatments. Although still in experimentation, the visualization of amyloid deposition by positron emission tomography or magnetic resonance imaging will allow in vivo diagnosis of AD. In addition, experiments with the amyloid vaccine are still ongoing, and very recent data suggest that intravenous gammaglobulins may be beneficial and safe for the treatment of AD.