Drug slows pace of Parkinson’s
New York, Jan. 28 1999 - Recently Parkinson’s disease has
been in the news because actor Michael J. Fox revealed that
he suffers from the degenerative brain disorder. Before
that it was Attorney General Janet Reno and boxer Muhammad
Ali. Now a drug for Lou Gehrig’s disease is being tested as
a way to slow the progression of Parkinson’s.
It started with a twitch in my right index finger, which is
going right now,” said Parkinson’s patient Carole Peters.
In the past 10 years, Peters’ Parkinson’s disease has progressed
rapidly. Today, she only gets about 30 minutes at a time relatively
symptom-free. The remainder of the time, she’s either shaking,
or she is completely stiff.
“The stiffness bothers me the most because I feel like I’m stuck
in a chair and can’t move and helpless. I get panicky,” Peters
explained.
Peter’s Parkinson’s is due to the degeneration of a specific group
of nerve cells deep in the brain. It is not clear why these brain cells
die, but one theory is that they are bombarded with an excess
of a neurotransmitter called glutamate.
According to Dr. Warren Olanow of Mount Sinai Medical School,
“Normally, glutamate helps to communicate information between
nerves and other nerves. But if you get too much glutamate, it
can actually induce cell death, what’s called excitotoxic
degeneration.
A new drug called Rilutek, already approved to treat Lou Gehrig’s
disease, is being tested as a way to protect brain cells in Parkinson’s.
The central neuron is damaged by too much glutamate. Rilutek then is
introduced and the glutamate dissipates.
Dr. Olanow said, “The hope is that if we block the glutamate with
this drug inParkinson’s disease, we’ll be able to interfere with
that cascade and slow down the degeneration.”
In other words, if an early stage Parkinson’s patient were to be
given the drug, it might prevent them from getting to the advanced stage
that Peters suffers, or at least significantly delay that progression.
Dr. Olanow is leading a national study to see whether Rilutek works.
“We are recruiting patients with early, untreated or minimally
Parkinson’s disease,” he said.
This Phase III study aims to enroll people with early Parkinson’s, ages
40 to 80, at 43 medical centers around the country.
The Parkinson’s Foundation is encouraging patients to take part, partly
because it is the first drug that actually interferes with
the cell death process rather than just treating the symptoms.
This is not a cure for Parkinson’s, but what Rilutek may do is
make it so that instead of taking 10 years to get to a certain
stage of the disaese, it may take 20 years or more.
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Gail Vass
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