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Citicoline as Add-On Treatment in Alzheimer's Disease: Tips from the Citicholinage Study
Pietro Gareri* and Alberto CastagnaCatanzaro Lido, ASP Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy
- *Corresponding Author:
- Pietro Gareri
Geriatrician - Director of Center for Cognitive Disorders and Dementia
Catanzaro Lido, ASP Catanzaro 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Tel: +3909617033013
E-mail: pietro.gareri@alice.it
Received date: June 06, 2017; Accepted date: July 17, 2017; Published date: July 24, 2017
Citation: Gareri P, Castagna A (2017) Citicoline as Add-On Treatment in Alzheimer’s Disease: Tips from the Citicholinage Study. J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism 7:353. doi:10.4172/2161-0460.1000353
Copyright: © 2017 Gareri P, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The Citicholinage Study was an Italian multicentric, retrospective study showing the effects of combination treatment of a cholinergic precursor, citicoline, with acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AchEI) (donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine) in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. This was the first study which assessed the possible role of citicoline associated to a cholinesterase inhibitor, used for at least 9 months, at the maximum tolerated dosage. It involved 448 patients aged 65 years old or older, 251 treated with combination therapy vs. 197 treated with the only AchEI, mostly donepezil and rivastigmine. Patients in combined treatment showed a statistically significant increase in MMSE between T0 and T1 (16.88 ± 3.38 versus 17.62 ± 3.64, respectively, p=0.000) and between T1 and T2 (17.62 ± 3.64 versus 17.83.54 respectively, p=0.000). The association citicoline plus donepezil showed to be still better than citicoline plus rivastigmine. Definitely the present study showed that a cholinergic precursor such as citicoline plus an AchEI is able to slow down disease progression in AD patients.
