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The 67th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) brought more than 12,000 neurologists to Washington D.C. from April 18 through 25 of this year. Of the nearly 2,500 presentations that took place during that week, Dr. Natalia Rost, MD, MPH and chair of the AAN Scientific Committee, felt three expositions really stood out.
They had to do with recent developments in the treatment of Alzheimer’s, migraine and stroke. Medscape reports that she spoke about them at a recent press conference.
Dr. Rost was excited by Biogen Idec Inc.’s development of aducanumab, a monoclonal antibody that may be able to modulate the course of Alzheimer’s Disease. Rost found the results of a recent randomized study of its use to be promising.
Aducanumab works by reducing the amyloid plaque burden in the brain and its use is associated with a slowing of cognitive decline. The compound was found by researchers to be safe and tolerable enough for them to move on to a phase 3 trail.
We reported about another method of treating Alzheimer’s (reducing amyloid plaque using sonograms) in a recent Tech Talk article, which can be found here. All of these advances give hope that a cure for this degenerative disease is just around the corner.
Dr. Rost was also excited by new research exploring the pathophysiology of migraines. Using MRI scans, researchers compared the cortical thickness of brain areas associated with pain processing in people who do and do not get migraine headaches. They discovered that migraine sufferers have thicker cortices, particularly in the left superior temporal and inferior parietal regions. This finding suggests that those with migraines are unable to shift attention away from their pain.
As far as the clinical implications of these findings go, Dr. Rost believes that this understanding may open the door to new ways of treating migraine headache. She believes that cognitive-behavioral therapies including biofeedback might be able to help patients reorient their perceptions of pain so that they might have an easier time dealing with it.
Finally, Dr. Rost spoke about the results of last year’s MR CLEAN trail, a Danish clinical trial that assessed the treatment of acute stroke. This study compared the results of stroke treatment using standard therapy of intravenous thrombolysis with treatment that also included intra-arterial intervention using the latest-generation stent retrievers. Researchers found that patients who underwent mechanical thrombectomy showed better functional independence than those treated only with standard therapy.
The results of this study were reported by us late last year, but Dr. Rost believes that this exciting new development deserves far more attention by neurosurgeons. “There are very few game-changers that come during our lifetimes,” stated Dr. Rost, ”but as a stroke neurologist, I think this study, in particular, is one of these.”
