Off-label medication use in frontotemporal dementia
Bei Hu, Leslie Ross, John Neuhaus, David Knopman, Joel Kramer, Bradley Boeve, Richard J Caselli, Neill Graff-Radford, Mario F Mendez, Bruce L Miller, Adam L Boxer, Bei Hu, Leslie Ross, John Neuhaus, David Knopman, Joel Kramer, Bradley Boeve, Richard J Caselli, Neill Graff-Radford, Mario F Mendez, Bruce L Miller, Adam L Boxer
Abstract
Objective: There are no Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medications indicated for the treatment of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). We sought to determine the most commonly used drugs used to treat behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD) in specialized dementia clinics.
Methods: Medication and demographic data from the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers of California (ARCC) and a multicenter FTD natural history study (NHS) data set were compared in bvFTD and Alzheimer's disease (AD), and effects of demographic variables were assessed using logistic regression.
Results: Overall, the percentage of patients taking one or more FDA-approved AD or psychiatric medications was similar in bvFTD and AD; however, after controlling for demographic variables, acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (AChI) use was less common in bvFTD, whereas memantine use remained similar in the 2 groups.
Conclusions: Despite lack of evidence for efficacy, the use of AChIs and memantine is common in bvFTD. Clinical trials should be pursued to determine the optimal therapeutic interventions for bvFTD.
Conflict of interest statement
Declaration of Conflicting Interest
The authors declared a potential conflict of interest as follows: ALB has received research support from Elan, Forest, Genentech, Medivation, Myriad, Novartis, Pfizer and Wyeth for conducting clinical trials and has served as a consultant for Satoris and Bristol Myers Squibb. DK has received research support from Elan and Forest. BB has received research support from Myriad. BLM has received research support from Novartis.
Source: PubMed