Monash University researchers are assessing a new drug that researchers believe could impact a form of dementia.
There are no approved treatments for behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Monash researchers are investigating the drug candidate sodium selenate. In a 2022 study, it was found to be safe and well-tolerated in people living with bvFTD.
The researchers are now assessing the drug’s impact on brain functioning.
While relatively rare, FTD causes progressive damage and shrinkage to either or both of the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain. It also causes behavioural changes such as impulsivity, inappropriate behaviour, emotional indifference, and language loss.
Neuroscientists Professor Terence O’Brien and Dr Lucy Vivash from the School of Translational Medicine lead a phase 2b clinical trial in which half the participants receive 52 weeks of treatment with sodium selenate and the other half a placebo.
"This is an internationally unique clinical trial that, if positive, would bring to patients the first proven disease-modifying treatment for this currently untreatable and devastating progressive neurodegenerative disease,” said Professor O’Brien.
“It’s also an inexpensive drug, which is important, as we’ve seen recently that new promising treatments for dementias can cost much more than what governments and ordinary people can afford. Sodium selenate is not quite as cheap as aspirin, but it is unlikely to cost tens of thousands of dollars either.”
Professor Amy Brodtmann, from the School of Translational Medicine, said while it is generally difficult to recruit patients with degenerative neurological conditions, FTD poses even more challenges. “Fronto-temporal dementia is often misdiagnosed as depression, anxiety or Alzheimer’s Disease,” she said.
“Carers or partners are often exhausted from navigating the health system for a correct diagnosis, as GPs tend not to think of dementia when the person in front of them is in their 30s, 40s or 50s.”
Over the 52 weeks of the trial, researchers will compare changes in brain volume in the treatment and placebo groups. They will also examine the levels of tau, a protein involved in the development of FTD, in the cerebrospinal fluid, the rate of cognitive decline, and behavioural changes.