The DIAN TU trial

Watch Dr Cath Mummery discuss the DIAN-TU clinical trial, which aims to prevent at-risk patients from developing Alzheimer’s disease.

This video was made in 2016, and the trial continued until results were released earlier this year, in February 2020. Unfortunately, the ‘topline results’ were negative, meaning that there was not a statistically significant difference between treatment groups and the no treatment group on a cognitive measure chosen as the study’s primary endpoint.

However, subsequent analyses, presented in April 2020 have revealed that one of the two treatments did seem to have positive effects – not on the cognitive measure – but on underlying levels of proteins known to cause Alzheimer’s disease. This means that the study will continue, with an open label extension of one of the two treatments, to see whether this might have some clinical benefit after all.

How do you feel about taking part in research? Would you take part in a trial, or prefer other types of research that don’t involve testing new treatments? In the UK there’s a service called Join Dementia Research which matches volunteers (people with and people without dementia) with studies that are taking place. Would you consider joining a service like this?