Loading...
Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) is a human prion disease that results in rapidly progressive dementia and causes death within 1 year in 90% of cases. Quinacrine is an antimalarial drug known to have central nervous system penetration and eliminates prions in vitro. Open-label administration suggested that the medication was well-tolerated by sCJD patients. Therefore, researchers undertook this randomized, controlled clinical trial of oral quinacrine (300 mg daily) to assess survival benefit. Of 425 patients, 69 patients were evaluated, of whom 54 were randomized to quinacrine therapy or placebo. An additional 3 subjects were excluded from analysis following the discovery of a known genetically determined variant of CJD. Open-label…