An international clinical trial known as PrevenTRON is beginning recruitment of approximately 1,600 participants aged 55 to 80 from around the world, with the first European participants being screened by the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS foundation trust. The trial aims to investigate whether an experimental drug can prevent Alzheimer’s disease from developing in people who show no current memory problems but are identified as having an elevated risk for cognitive decline.
Eligible participants will first be assessed to confirm they have no memory impairment, then offered a blood test to determine whether they carry p-tau217, a biomarker associated with Alzheimer’s progression. Previous research has indicated that people with the highest levels of p-tau217 face an estimated 78% chance of developing cognitive impairment within 10 years. Blood tests measuring p-tau217 have also demonstrated the ability to identify Alzheimer’s disease with up to 95% accuracy.
The drug being tested, called trontinemab, was developed by Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche and works by targeting amyloid plaques, a toxic protein that accumulates in the brain and damages nerve cells. Early research showed the drug cleared amyloid plaques in nine out of 10 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive decline within 28 weeks. Participants in the PrevenTRON study will be randomly assigned to receive either trontinemab or a placebo and monitored to assess how quickly they develop signs of dementia.
The trial is expected to last four to six years, with at least 15 hospitals and clinics across the UK anticipated to participate by the end of the year. According to Prof Ramin Nilforooshan, chief investigator for the trial, the research represents a shift from treating Alzheimer’s after symptoms emerge to potentially preventing it from developing. He emphasized that trontinemab remains an investigational medicine requiring careful evaluation of its effectiveness. Alzheimer’s disease is believed to develop in the brain up to 10 years before individuals typically seek treatment, affecting approximately one in 14 people over age 65 and one in six people over age 80.
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