RCT finds memantine of no benefit in patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Source: Lancet Neurology Area: News Frontotemporal lobar degeneration or frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) is a common cause of dementia in individuals who develop symptoms before age 65 years. It encompasses three core clinical syndromes: behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), and two primary progressive aphasias (PPA): semantic dementia and progressive non-fluent aphasia. BvFTD is the most common form of the disease and features prominent social and behavioural deficits as well as executive dysfunction. There are no medications approved to treat FTD, and only a handful of randomised, placebo-controlled trials have been conducted in FTD. Drugs approved for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease including memantine have been used off-label in patients with FTD.   This 26 week RCT evaluated whether memantine is an effective treatment for FTD in patients who met Neary criteria for behavioural variant FTD (bvFTD) or semantic dementia and had characteristic brain atrophy. Of 100 patients screened, 81 ...
Source: NeLM - News - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: news