Tacrine as a Treatment for Alzheimer's Dementia

IN November 1986 the Journal published an article by Summers and his colleagues1 on the use of oral tetrahydroaminoacridine (tacrine, or THA) in the treatment of 17 patients with moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's These workers reported encouraging initial results, suggesting that the agent may be at least temporarily useful in the long-term palliative treatment of patients with Alzheimer's disease. They concluded, We stress that further observations will be required before a clear assessment of the role of this agent can be made. The Journal's editors had deliberated long and hard before deciding to publish this work. Reviewers pointed out that . . .