Affiliations: [a] Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, School of Medicine, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
| [b] Department of Neurology and Centre for Clinical Neuroscience, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Yuzhong District, Chongqing, China
| [c] Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Lan Tan, Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, China (L.T.). Tel.: +1 415 988 0162; Fax: +1 415 476 0679; E-mail: dr.tanlan@163.com (L. T.).
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Jin-Tai Yu, Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA (J.T.Y.). Tel.: +1 415 988 0162; Fax: +1 415 476 0679; E-mails: jintai.yu@ucsf.eduyu-jintai@163.com (J. T. Y.).
Abstract: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in the elderly. Over the past 20 years, both pharmacological and lifestyle interventions have been studied for AD prevention, but the overall results have been disappointing. The majority of disappointing results have raised questions and great challenges for the future of AD prevention trials. Ongoing advances in the knowledge of pathogenesis, in the identification of novel targets, in improved outcome measures, and in identification and validation of biomarkers may lead to effective strategies for AD prevention. In this paper, we review the selection of participants and interventions, trial design, outcome assessments, and promising biomarkers in prevention trials, and summarize the lessons learned from completed trials and perspectives from ongoing trials in AD prevention. Selection of optimal participants and interventions, coupled with more refined outcomes and more efficient trial design, may have the capacity to deliver a new era of preventive discovery in this challenging area.
