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Rotigotine for Early PD Randomized, blind, controlled trial of transdermal rotigotine in early Parkinson disease RL Watts, J Jankovic, C Waters, A Rajput, B Boroojerdi, J Rao Neurology 200768:272-276 Rotigotine transdermal patch is effective in early PD, according to this study. Rotigotine is a non-ergotoline dopamine agonist. Two hundred seventy-seven patients were randomized 2:1 to receive rotigotine or placebo in identical patches. Eligible patients were within 5 years of diagnosis, had received dopaminergic therapy for less than 6 months, and had a Hoehn and Yahr Scale core of 3 or less. Rotigotine was titrated from 2 mg/day to a maximum of 6 mg/day over 3 weeks, and then maintained for 24 weeks. Approximately 80% of each group completed the trial. UPDRS combined scores for parts II and III improved by 4 points in rotigotine-treated patients, and worsened by 1.3 points in placebo-treated patients (p<0.0001). Motor score improvements contributed the most to the difference. The rotigotine group included 48% "responders" (20% or greater improvement), versus 19% for the placebo group (p<0.0001). Therapeutic effects were seen within two weeks. Adverse events that were more common in the rotigotine group included application-site reactions (44%, versus 12% for placebo), nausea (41% vs. 17%), somnolence (33% vs. 20%), headache (16% vs. 9%), and insomnia (9% vs. 3%). Application-site reactions led to discontinuation in 5% of the rotigotine group. Previous E-MOVE reports on rotigotine are archived HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. http://www.mdvu.org/emove/article.asp?ID=875 http://www.mdvu.org/emove/article.asp?ID=540 http://www.mdvu.org/emove/article.asp?ID=406 http://www.mdvu.org/emove/article.asp?ID=367 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn