Olya Lechky

A new multi-national clinical trial of donepezil (Aricept) confirms and augments the encouraging findings from previous multi-centre studies that the drug significantly improves cognition and global functioning in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's Disease (AD).

Presented by Dr. Serge Gauthier and colleagues at the McGill Centre for Studies in Aging in Montreal, the new trial provided the international (including Canadian) data showing efficacy and safety. Following HPB approval of donepezil last August, Canadian physicians for the first time have a highly specific, effective, non-toxic and well-tolerated drug with which to treat the rapidly growing number of older people affected by this progressive and ultimately fatal disease.

According to Dr. Gauthier, the large multi-centre trial published in Neurology (January 1998) showed that donepezil improved memory, orientation and the use of language in addition to the performance of daily functions such as bathing, dressing and eating. The new trial, reported at the 5th International Geneva/Springfield Symposium on Advances in Alzheimer Therapy in April in Geneva, Switzerland, confirmed these findings.