Reducing risk factors is a useful way to counteract diseases. The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the US is often quoted as 6.9 million out of 333 million people, or 2.1%. It is around 0.7% in the UK, 0.9% in Denmark, and worldwide the estimate is 0.5%. Alongside risk factor reduction, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could strengthen the US fight against AD by reconsidering its October 2023 decision to liberalize reimbursement of amyloid PET scans, or better yet, advise replacing these non-specific scans with FDG-PET, which shows what AD is really about: impaired regional brain function.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; aducanumab; amyloid-PET; diagnosis; donanemab; lecanemab; prevalence; risk factor.