# Memantine

Source: https://onco.cc/drugs/memantine/  
OnCo record `memantine` (Treatment). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Memantine is an Alzheimer's drug taken during whole-brain radiotherapy to protect memory. With hippocampal-sparing radiotherapy it has become the standard way to limit the thinking problems the treatment causes.

## Summary

Memantine is an NMDA-receptor antagonist approved by the FDA in 2003 for moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease. In neuro-oncology it is given orally for 24 weeks starting with whole-brain radiotherapy. RTOG 0614 showed it delayed cognitive decline, and NRG CC001 (Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2020) showed that memantine plus hippocampal-avoidance intensity-modulated radiotherapy preserved cognition better than memantine with conventional whole-brain radiotherapy, without loss of intracranial control.

It does not treat the tumour itself. The secondary brain tumours page names it as the standard neuroprotective companion whenever whole-brain radiotherapy is still used rather than stereotactic radiosurgery.

## Fields

- Kind: Treatment
- Status: approved
- Last checked: 2026-09-17
- Also known as: Ebixa
- Tags: subtype-drugs-wave
- Brand: Namenda
- Modality: Oral NMDA receptor antagonist (neuroprotectant)
- Mechanism: A low-affinity blocker of the NMDA glutamate receptor that limits the excitotoxic damage radiation causes to hippocampal neurons, given during and after whole-brain radiotherapy.
- Approvals: US 2003: Moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease (use as a neuroprotectant during whole-brain radiotherapy is off-label)

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memantine
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memantine

## Connected records

- terms: [Whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT)](https://onco.cc/terms/wbrt/)
- cancers: [Brain metastases (secondary brain tumours)](https://onco.cc/cancers/secondary-brain-tumours/)

---
JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/memantine.json