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Hippocampal Cerebral Blood Flow Upped With Antihypertensive Use in Alzheimer’s

Publish date:: July 30, 2019

Key clinical point: Patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer’s disease who took nilvadipine experienced increased cerebral blood flow in the hippocampus.

Major finding: At 6 months, nilvadipine lowered systolic BP by 11.5 mm Hg, and whole-brain gray matter cerebral blood flow remained stable. Blood flow to the hippocampus increased by approximately 20% among patients treated with nilvadipine – by 24.4 mL/100 g per minute to the left hippocampus and by 20.1 mL/100 g per minute to the right hippocampus.

Study details: A preplanned 6-month substudy of 44 patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer’s disease in the double-blind, randomized, controlled NILVAD trial.

Disclosures: The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and the Dutch Alzheimer Society funded the NILVAD cerebral blood flow substudy. NILVAD was funded by the European Commission Framework 7 Program Health Theme. Dr. Claassen had no disclosures; one coauthor disclosed a pending patent for nilvadipine.

Citation:

Claassen JAHR et al. Hypertension. 2019 Jun 17. doi: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.119.12892.

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