Treatment and diagnosis of alzheimer's disease

Patent Number: 7,189,703

This patent covers the treatment of Alzheimer's disease by antibiotic therapy. Covered include various macrolides such as azithromycin, clarithromycin, dirithromycin, erythromycin and troleandomycin.

The rationale is that Alzheimer's disease patients are infected with C. pneumoniae, which is demonstrated in the examples section.

The inventor of the patent also published that C. pneumoniae is present in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. However, some healthy control brains also were infected. Specifically in the publication (Gerard et al. Chlamydophila (Chlamydia) pneumoniae in the Alzheimer's brain. FEMS Immunol Med Microbiol. 2006 Dec;48(3):355-66.) it was reported that 20/27 AD patients, but only 3/27 controls, were PCR-positive for the pathogen.

View this patent on the USPTO website.