Carotid intima-media thickness as a predictor of response to cholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer's disease: an open-label trial.

BACKGROUND

Cholinesterase inhibitors are modestly effective in treating patients with Alzheimer's disease. However, there may be important inter-individual variations ranging from no improvement at all to significant improvement and long periods of stabilization. Carotid atherosclerosis is associated with cognitive decline in elderly people.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to investigate whether carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) predicts response to cholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer's disease.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A series of 54 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease were enrolled consecutively in an open-label trial. At baseline, all patients were assessed on the following clinical scales: Mini-Mental State Examination, Clinical Dementia Rating, the Hachinski Ischemic Scale, Blessed Dementia Rating Scale, Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-cog), Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and a daily-living activities scale (Disability Assessment for Dementia [DAD]). Investigations included magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and a colour echo-Doppler scan of the carotid arteries to measure the maximum IMT. Patients were then commenced on galantamine treatment for 6 months, after which scores on the ADAS-cog, NPI and DAD scales were reassessed.

RESULTS

A total of 50 patients completed the study. Their mean age was 77.78 years (SD 6.51 years); 34 patients were female. Galantamine treatment decreased the mean NPI score from 17.68 to 13.86 points, but this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.07). On the ADAS-cog scale, a modest and nonsignificant mean difference of -0.4 points (p=0.7) was observed. A weak (correlation coefficient r=0.4) but significant correlation between IMT and changes in clinical scale score was found, with low carotid IMT being shown to be a predictor of response on both the ADAS-cog (p=0.003) and NPI (p=0.006) scales; these findings were corroborated in multivariate analysis. For men, the correlation was stronger (r=0.7 and 0.8 for the ADAS-cog and NPI scales, respectively).

CONCLUSION

Although the magnitude of effect was moderate, carotid IMT could be a significant predictor of clinical response to cholinesterase inhibitors in patients with Alzheimer's disease.