Infusion drugs to battle Alzheimer's disease give hope to Western Pa. patients

At age 57, Christine Lieb of Scottdale has hope that the new treatments she is undergoing for early onset Alzheimer’s disease will give her more time to enjoy her life.

“I feel 100% better when I’m done. I feel it when it is time to have another one,” Lieb said. She was referring to infusion of the drug Leqembi she receives at Independence Health System’s Westmoreland Hospital in Greensburg.

She receives the treatments every two weeks, with her sixth infusion set for mid-August.

Lieb is among the initial group of about a dozen patients at Independence’s Greensburg and Butler hospitals who have been receiving one of two drugs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved to treat Alzheimer’s.

While the drugs are believed to “change the entire trajectory of the disease” by slowing the progression, there still is no cure for Alzheimer’s, said Independence Health neurosciences director Dr. Mary Elizabeth Kovacik Eicher. Eicher spoke during a news conference Wednesday in Greensburg.

Independence Health began using the infusion drugs on Alzheimer’s patients last December, making it the first health care provider in Southwestern Pennsylvania to offer the treatment, according to Eicher.

The drugs used in about a dozen patients at its Greensburg and Butler hospitals — Leqembi and Kisunla — are made to attack the amyloid plaque that is “at least one of the causes of the disease,” that damages brain cells, Eicher said.

Despite the short time the infusion drugs have been used and small number of patients, at least some are showing improvement, Eicher said.

The treatments “will bring new hope for patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Carol Fox, chief medical director for Independence Health.

“For so long, there was no hope that I could give” to patients, said Eicher, a neurologist and a Blairsville native.

Oral medications to slow Alzheimer’s offered a few years ago gave some hope to patients but came with side effects, Eicher said.

Lieb first experienced symptoms a few years ago when she had vision problems and difficulty speaking. Her symptoms progressed over the next two years. After medical tests failed to find a root cause, she credited a physician’s assistant at Westmoreland Hospital for ordering a spinal tap.

The results were devastating — the presence of the amyloid protein in the spinal fluid indicated she had Alzheimer’s disease.

For Debbie Provenzano, 66, of Penn Township, the first patient to receive an infusion at Westmoreland Hospital, the typical forgetfulness of aging became more pronounced with repeating questions, forgetting keys or ingredients in her favorite recipes, said her husband Peter, who spoke for his wife.

Debbie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2022, but her husband said the news was not so surprising because her mother suffered from the disease for the last 15 years of her life.

“To say it was a gut punch was an understatement,” he said.

While acknowledging that the infusion treatments his wife undergoes “is not a miracle cure, it is not even a possible cure,” Provenzano said it was a hope for a better life with his wife at least for some time. She faces her 19th treatment later this month, augmented by her Alzheimer’s medications.

“It is a hope that it can be an effective treatment … hope for (more) quality time with a loved one,” Provenzano said.

There were about 282,000 Pennsylvanians dealing with Alzheimer’s disease in 2020, according to the latest data from the nonprofit Alzheimer’s Association.

This story has been updated to clarify Independence Health neurosciences director Dr. Mary Elizabeth Kovacik Eicher’s comments.