Anti-inflammatory drugs have been suggested as a treatment for AD. The authors examined the AD-type pathology in postmortem brain tissue from elderly nondemented individuals who were chronically exposed to anti-inflammatory drugs. The results suggest that 1) these drugs do not affect the formation of either senile plaques or neurofibrillary tangles and 2) nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may be more effective than steroids in treating AD because of their ability to suppress the microglial activation associated with senile plaques.