Cerebrolysin in Alzheimer's disease: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with a neurotrophic agent

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Cerebrolysin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Cerebrolysin (Cere) is a compound with neurotrophic activity.

Trends were noted in the Disability Assessment in Dementia scale and the Cornell Depression Scale.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 192 patients taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

Effects on cognition and global function were evaluated with the Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-Cog) and the Clinicians Interview-based Impression of Change with Caregiver Input scale (CIBIC+) 4, 12, 24 weeks after the beginning of the injections. 192 patients were enrolled, 95 were randomized to placebo, and 97 to Cere.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter and parallel-group study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Cerebrolysin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

As a double-blind Cerebrolysin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Some patients received a placebo instead of Cerebrolysin, giving a reference point.

More than one site took part, so the patients came from several places.

What Was Measured

Trends were noted in the Disability Assessment in Dementia scale and the Cornell Depression Scale.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Alleles, Alzheimer Disease, Amino Acids, Apolipoproteins E, Cognition, Depression and Disability Evaluation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Cerebrolysin in 192 patients.

Results are reported in around 1 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2002 (Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996)), a journal based in Austria.

More context: the Cerebrolysin compound page, all human trials.