Talk:Lecanemab

BBC reporting

Some BBC reporting might help someone improve this article further. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-63749586 CT55555(talk) 03:51, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

More objective reporting please

Right now the article has this:

"It was announced in late November 2022 that drug was a success in clinical trials and exceeded it’s goal in reaching primary endpoints."

That reads like promo, though. Additionally there is no citation, so who added this sentence without giving a source/citation?

Anyway. This is not why I am here or writing this, though. Today I read news about **lecanemab** here:

https://science.orf.at/stories/3216342/

This is in german though.

The to me interesting part was:

"In über einem Fünftel der Fälle traten jedoch den Angaben zufolge Hirnblutungen oder -schwellungen auf – im Vergleich zu nur gut zehn Prozent mit Placebo, berichteten die Forscher."

That means (as a short, incomplete summary) that there are more issues in regards to brain swelling or brain bleeding or something along those lines. Perhaps someone could compare it with the article at "New England Journal of Medicine": https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2212948

Wikipedia should be as objective as possible. The currently uncited sentence is weird, and that there is no mention of side effects (the 1/5 in german means 20%, whereas the placebo control is at 10% does mean there is some difference that is noticable). Even the article at New England mentions this: "but was associated with adverse events" so I don't understand why wikipedia does not mention that at all. Was the entry older at wikipedia and not recently updated? That could explain it. Either way the wikipedia article should be updated. As I was the one to report this, I'll avoid making any changes and leave this up to others to evaluate the merit of the above suggestions. 2A02:8388:1641:5500:8207:8CE:DF2:AB90 (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

No mention of improvement or reduction in dementia

Article has No mention of improvement or reduction in dementia. What were the primary endpoints of the trial ? Any mental ones or just surrogate biomarkers ? - Rod57 (talk) 23:26, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Controversy Around FDA’s Approval of Biogen Alzheimer’s Drug

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/aducanumab-for-alzheimers/?subscriber=true&utm_source=NutritionFacts.org&utm_campaign=9eed745943-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_7_26_2022_12_48_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_40f9e497d1-9eed745943-25816069&mc_cid=9eed745943&mc_eid=04b95231ca 45.149.228.231 (talk) 20:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Lecanemab demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction

This sentence in the article has litterally no meaning whatsever.

'Satistically significant' means that an effect exists, but reveals literally nothing of the magnitude thereof.

'Clinically meaningful findings' are (according to NIH) 'those which improve medical care resulting in the improvement of individual's physical function'. This also lacks every form of quantification.

The sentence is thus 'framing' and nothing else (which in my view is unacceptable in an encyclopedia). Fjvelsen (talk) 15:45, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

My sense is that the sentence does have meaning as written. However, now that you draw my attention to this sentence, the meaning that I read into it is false. Here is the text from the original NEJM paper (PMID: 36449413) that all the secondary references are summarizing: "A definition of clinically meaningful effects in the primary end point of the CDR-SB score has not been established; however, this trial exceeded the prospectively defined target, with an estimated treatment difference of 0.373 points on a scale range of 18, a baseline value of 3.2, and early Alzheimer’s disease typically characterized by a score of 0.5 to 6." Some observations:

(1) The authors are stating that there is no definition of clinically meaningful effects so therefore from their point of view there is indeed no meaning to the claim.

(2) the part of the sentence after the semicolon is exceptionally hard to interpret

(3) "a prospectively defined target" is not really relevant to whether something is clinically meaningful.

(4) the minimum observable or recordable difference on the CDR-SB is 0.5. So if there is an average difference of 0.373 points across a cohort, the difference is less than the minimally observable difference. It is hard to see how such a difference could be clinically meaningful. Maybe if measured by some other metric, but not the CDR-SB.

(5) other authors had indeed set clinically meaningful thresholds for the CDR-SB in other papers; these NEJM authors are relying on the fact that some of these thresholds differ. Therefore they claim that a threshold has "not been established". Yet, the effect they see is less than any of the other published thresholds for clinically meaningful effect.

So with that analysis, I feel comfortable deleting part of the sentence in question. Jaredroach (talk) 23:26, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

"and its crucial " ?

"and its crucial" > ". It is crucial" ? or "and its crucial" > ", which is crucial" ? or "and its crucial" > "and is crucial" ? R. Henrik Nilsson (talk) 18:18, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Cost impediment to use

Could mention the significant cost (~$90k pa) of the medication and services to use it [in USA]. Cost is largest ‘roadblock’ to lecanemab treatment for Alzheimer’s. - Rod57 (talk) 13:05, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Mixing up CDR and CDR-SB (not CDR-SOB)

There is seemingly confusion over the distinciton between the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) and the Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB)? As explained in Eisai's "Clinical Dementia Rating - Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB)" (available at the link below), the test cover three cognition domains (memory, orientation, and judgement/problem-solving) as well as Function (community affairs, home and hobbies, and personal care). The scores in each domain range from zero (no impairment) to three (severe impairment).

A CDR-SB total score (i.e. sum of the individal scores in the six domains, hence the title CDR-Sum of Boxes or CDR-SB) of zero represents someone with normal cognition, while a score of 16-18 suggests severe dementia. The text in the existing article properly reflects this scale.

But the text contains a link to the Clinical Dementia Rating wikipage, which incorrectly reports that a composite score from 0-3 is determined from the six individual ratings. This is true for what is referred to as the Global CDR Score, but that is separate and distinct from the CDR-SB.

Is there need for creating another reference for CDR-SB, or should the CDR-SB be better explained in the Lecanemab wiki page?

https://www.understandingalzheimersdisease.com/-/media/Files/uAD/Clinical-Assessment/CDR-Brochure.pdf DMcKissock (talk) 13:49, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Mechanism of Action

The reference for the existing Mechanism of Action explains that this information is from an early (2018) mouse study. I suggest a more appropriate description would be from the "Mechanism of Action" section in a typical Eisa press release for Leqembi. For example, their latest press release notes the following (with a bit of paraphrasing on my part): Leqembi fights AD in two ways - targeting both amyloid plaque and amyloid protofibrils. Amyloid protofibrils are thought to be the most toxic amyloid-ß species that contribute to brain damage in AD and play a major role in the cognitive decline of this progressive and devastating disease."

DMcKissock (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2026 (UTC)