The use of donepezil for Alzheimer's disease: Standing Medical Advisory Committee advice (5/1998) : Department of Health - PublicationsThe Standing Medical Advisory Committee (SMAC) recommends that treatment with donepezil should be initiated and supervised only by a specialist experienced in the management of dementia. Benefit should be assessed at 12 weeks. Treatment should continue only for those patients with evidence of benefit5. There are currently few published data from primary research on donepezil. The main papers relevant to anti-dementia drugs that were considered by SMAC are listed under references. From the short-term studies so far available, there is evidence that donepezil produces improvement in a minority of patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (defined in the published studies as those with a Mini-Mental State Examination of between 10 and 26). There is no evidence to date that donepezil has any effect on the non-cognitive manifestations of Alzheimer's disease. The available evidence is not sufficient to give a clear verdict on the cost-effectiveness of donepezil.
