The NHS is nowhere close to prepared to supply the primary efficient Alzheimer's medication to the massive numbers of people that want them.

Estimates by Alzheimer's Research UK counsel 575,000 individuals within the UK would meet the therapy standards used within the scientific trials of lecanemab and donanemab.

These medication work finest when given on the very first phases of Alzheimer's, or earlier nonetheless when sufferers have what medical doctors name delicate cognitive impairment.

But that wants a prognosis the NHS simply cannot ship on the scale wanted.

These are potent medication with a small threat of mind swelling and mind bleeds.

So it's good to be completely certain that mind fog, reminiscence issues and decline in considering expertise actually are attributable to Alzheimer's earlier than beginning therapy. Otherwise you'd run the chance of unwanted side effects with none profit.

But the amyloid protein, which builds up within the mind in individuals with the illness, can solely be detected with certainty with a PET mind scan or by taking a pattern of the spinal fluid.

There are solely 69 PET scanners in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with just a few extra in Scotland. But solely 10% of their time is in diagnosing Alzheimer's; the majority of their workload is in most cancers.

And there aren't sufficient clinics within the UK with the expert professionals wanted to do lumbar punctures, the process for inserting a needle into the backbone to take away a pattern of fluid.

Drugs provide hope for bleak prognosis

The first of the medication, lecanemab, has been accessible within the US for some sufferers since January, with full approval later granted by the medicine's regulator.

But it might be early subsequent yr earlier than the UK regulator decides whether or not to licence the therapy. And it could then have to be authorized by NICE, the cost-effectiveness watchdog - within the US the drug prices round £20,000 a yr.

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It's irritating for sufferers and their households.

These medication provide some hope in what's in any other case a bleak prognosis.

But they continue to be out of attain within the UK.

And by the point they're accessible some sufferers may have progressed thus far that it could be too late for therapy.