{"entity":{"id":"memantine","kind":"drug","name":"Memantine","aka":["Ebixa"],"tldr":"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.\n\nIt 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.","status":"approved","asOf":"2026-09-17","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memantine","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memantine"}],"tags":["subtype-drugs-wave"],"related":["wbrt"],"cancers":["secondary-brain-tumours"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"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":[{"region":"US","year":2003,"indication":"Moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease (use as a neuroprotectant during whole-brain radiotherapy is off-label)"}],"mechanismSteps":[],"toxicity":[],"access":[],"regulatoryEvents":[]},"route":"/drugs/memantine/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"wbrt","kind":"term","name":"Whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT)","route":"/terms/wbrt/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"secondary-brain-tumours","kind":"cancer","name":"Brain metastases (secondary brain tumours)","route":"/cancers/secondary-brain-tumours/"}]}}