Key Points
- The 16th CTAD conference was held October 24–27 in Boston.
- Dr. Ali Rezai presented preliminary results from his clinical trial using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier after the delivery of aducanumab.
The 16th Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference was held October 24–27, 2023, in Boston. CTAD seeks to highlight the latest advances in Alzheimer’s research and features presentations on the latest and most innovative clinical trials. The meeting is attended by leaders from academic research centers, patient advocacy groups, international research coalitions, and pharmaceutical companies.
OC9. Accelerated β-Amyloid Plaque Reduction in Alzheimer’s Disease Combining Aducanumab Infusion with Focused Ultrasound Blood-Brain Barrier Opening by Ali Rezai, Pierre D’haese, Marc Haut, Manish Ranjan, Jeffrey Carpenter, Rashi Mehta, Kirk Wilhelmsen, Peng Wang, Victor Finomore, and Sally Hodder from the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute in Morgantown, WV.
The abstract describes the first three participants who received standard monthly infusions of aducanumab followed by focused ultrasound–mediated BBB opening (using the Insightec ExAblate Neuro system) two hours later. The BBB opening treatment was repeated after each of the first six aducanumab cycles, and it was directed at regions in one side of the brain with β-amyloid. Results were then compared with the opposite side of the brain. The full text of the abstract is available online and will be published in the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Additional topics discussed at the meeting included:
- Advances in anti-amyloid treatments
- The emergence of diagnostic blood-based biomarkers
- Amyloid-clearing immunotherapy, including combination trials of disease-modifying agents, gene therapy, vaccines, and multimodal interventions
- Encouraging results from clinical trials
CTAD’s scientific program is determined by a peer-review abstract selection process. The conference presented a great opportunity to introduce focused ultrasound to clinical and research teams from around the world.
CTAD 2024 will be held in Madrid, Spain, from October 29 through November 1, 2024.