Off-time Treatment Options for Parkinson ’s Disease

AbstractMotor fluctuations (MF) are deemed by patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) as the most troublesome disease feature resulting from the increasing impairment in responsiveness to dopaminergic drug treatments. MF are characterized by the loss of a stable response to levodopa over the nychthemeron with the reappearance of motor (and non-motor) parkinsonian clinical signs at various moments during the day and night. They normally appear after a few years of levodopa treatment and with a variable, though overall increasing severity, over the disease course. The armamentarium of first-line treatment options has widened in the last decade with new once-a-daily compounds, including a catechol O-methyltransferase inhibitor – Opicapone-, two MAO-B inhibitors plus channel blocker – Zonisamide and Safinamide and one amantadine extended-release formulation – ADS5012. In addition to apomorphine injection or oral levodopa dispersible tablets, which have been available for a long time, new on-demand therapies such as a pomorphine sublingual or levodopa inhaled formulations have recently shown efficacy as rescue therapies for Off-time treatment. When the management of MF becomes difficult in spite of oral/on-demand options, more complex therapies should be considered, including surgical, i.e. deep brain stimulation , or device-aided therapies with pump systems delivering continuous subcutaneous or intestinal levodopa or subcutaneous apomorphine formulation. Older and less commo...

Source: Neurology and Therapy - March 28, 2023 Category: Neurology Source Type: research