Uptake and Safety Profile of Anti-Amyloid Immunotherapies in Routine Clinical Practice

IntroductionAnti-amyloid immunotherapies are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of Alzheimers disease. The adoption and safety profile of these medications in routine clinical practice have not been described. MethodsWe performed a retrospective observational cohort study using nationwide electronic health record data from Epic Cosmos. The principal objective was to describe the baseline characteristics of patients prescribed anti-amyloid immunotherapy in routine clinical practice. Secondarily, we wished to determine whether prescription of anti-amyloid immunotherapy (with or without an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor [AChEI] or memantine) was associated with an increased risk of key safety end points when compared to an AChEI or memantine alone. We used a target trial emulation framework to identify and mitigate sources of bias. The primary end point was time to first nontraumatic intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). Secondary end points included other cardiovascular conditions (ischemic stroke (IS), myocardial infarction (MI), and a composite of ICH, IS, or MI), headache, diarrhea and overall healthcare utilization. Exploratory end points included adverse events linked to other immunotherapies. We used propensity score overlap weighting to balance baseline demographic and clinical characteristics across treatment groups. ResultsBetween July 1, 2023 and January 1, 2025, 2,616 patients (median age 74.8 years [IQR 69.8-78.8]; 53.9 % female) were prescribed anti-amyloid immunotherapy (with or without AChEI/memantine), and 1,065,192 patients (median age 79.98 [IQR 73.6-85.6], 57.9% female) were prescribed AChEI/memantine alone. In total, 401 patients prescribed anti-amyloid immunotherapy and 274,470 patients prescribed AChEI/memantine were assessed for safety end points. Compared with AChEI/memantine, prescription of anti-amyloid immunotherapy was not associated with increased hazard of ICH after adjustment (owHR 0.73 [95% CI 0.11-5.46]). Anti-amyloid immunotherapy prescription was associated with a higher risk of headache (owHR 2.16 [95% CI 1.12-4.16]) and respiratory infection (owHR 1.57 [95% CI 1.04-2.37]) but was not associated with other immune-related safety endpoints. ConclusionAnti-amyloid immunotherapy has been principally adopted by patients who are younger and medically healthier than patients receiving AChEI/memantine alone. Prescription of anti-amyloid immunotherapy was not associated with an increased risk of ICH.