Abstract
Earlier reports suggested that galantamine, a drug approved to treat mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD), and other centrally acting reversible acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors can serve as adjunct pretreatments against poisoning by organophosphorus compounds, including the nerve agent soman. The present study was designed to determine whether pretreatment with a clinically relevant oral dose of galantamine HBr mitigates the acute toxicity of 4.0×LD50 soman (15.08 µg/kg) in Macaca fascicularis posttreated intramuscularly with the conventional antidotes atropine (0.4 mg/kg), 2-pyridine aldoxime methyl chloride (30 mg/kg), and midazolam (0.32 mg/kg). The pharmacokinetic profile and maximal degree of blood AChE inhibition (∼25%-40%) revealed that the oral doses of 1.5 and 3.0 mg/kg galantamine HBr in these nonhuman primates (NHPs) translate to human-equivalent doses that are within the range used for AD treatment. Subsequent experiments demonstrated that 100% of NHPs pretreated with either dose of galantamine, challenged with soman, and posttreated with conventional antidotes survived 24 hours. By contrast, given the same posttreatments, 0% and 40% of the NHPs pretreated, respectively, with vehicle and pyridostigmine bromide (1.2 mg/kg, oral), a peripherally acting reversible AChE inhibitor approved as pretreatment for military personnel at risk of exposure to soman, survived 24 hours after the challenge. In addition, soman caused extensive neurodegeneration in the hippocampi of saline- or pyridostigmine-pretreated NHPs, but not in the hippocampi of galantamine-pretreated animals. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate the effectiveness of clinically relevant oral doses of galantamine to prevent the acute toxicity of supralethal doses of soman in NHPs. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: This is the first study to demonstrate that a clinically relevant oral dose of galantamine effectively prevents lethality and neuropathology induced by a supralethal dose of the nerve agent soman in Cynomolgus monkeys posttreated with conventional antidotes. These findings are of major significance for the continued development of galantamine as an adjunct pretreatment against nerve agent poisoning.