Study Shows That Tuberculosis Vaccine Decreases Rates Of Alzheimer's Disease In Individuals With Bladder Cancer
Source: Thailand Medical News Dec 24, 2019 4 years, 10 months, 4 weeks, 6 hours, 49 minutes ago
At the moment, from a statistic perspective
, Alzheimer's affects one-in-ten adults over the age of 65 a number that is expected to triple by 2030. The need to find a cure is extremely critical.
There might be a glimmer of hope now. A research team headed by Dr Hervé Bercovier, Dr Charles Greenblatt and Dr Benjamin Klein at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)'s Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics has discovered that the
Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (
BCG)
vaccine, originally developed for
tuberculosis and commonly used to treat
bladder cancer, may also be an effective treatment to prevent
Alzheimer's. They published their findings in
PLOS ONE.
Lead author Dr Bercovier told
Thailand Medical News, "There's data reaching back to the 1960's that shows that countries treating
bladder cancer patients with the
BCG vaccine had a lower prevalence of
Alzheimer's disease but it hadn't been properly analyzed."
Dr Bercovier and his team followed 1,371
bladder cancer patients receiving treatment at HU's Hadassah Medical Center. The average patient age was 68. During follow-up visits, 65
cancer patients had developed
Alzheimer's. Those who had not received
BCG as part of their treatment had a significantly higher risk of developing
Alzheimer's than did
BCG-treated patients: 8.9% (44 patients) as opposed to 2.4% (21). Further, when compared with the general (healthy) population, people who had never been treated with
BCG had a 4-fold higher risk for developing
Alzheimer's than did those who were treated with
BCG.
It is significant to note that the researchers have not developed a
vaccine that prevents
Alzheimer's. However, shared Dr Bercovier "our study is an important step towards understanding the ways in which our immune system is a major player in the pathogenesis of
Alzheimer's and how the
BCG vaccine, which modulates the immune system, may serve as an effective preventative treatment to this crippling condition."
Reference : Ofer N. Gofrit et al. Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) therapy lowers the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in bladder cancer patients, PLOS ONE (2019). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224433
