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'Breakthrough' in Parkinson's treatment Monday, July 26, 1999 Published at 23:46 GMT 00:46 UK - A new study has suggested that the drug ropinirole can relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's disease without causing the crippling side effects of the most widely-prescribed treatment, levodopa. The trial was conducted by SmithKline Beecham, which has sold ropinirole under the name Requip since it was licensed by the US's Food and Drug Administration in 1997. The company said the trial showed that ropinirole was as effective as levodopa, but far less likely to cause the side-effect of severe shaking. The findings were launched at a press conference in Vancouver, Canada, on Monday, following the trial across the UK, Europe, Israel and Canada. The five-year trial involved 268 patients with early stages of Parkinson's, a disease estimated to affect 100,000 people in Britain and four million worldwide. It showed that treating patients with Requip at the outset, and using levodopa only when symptoms become bad enough to require the stronger drug, resulted in fewer involuntary body movements than using levadopa from the beginning. The current standard treatment begins with levodopa, with roprinole offered as add-on treatment for patients with advanced symptoms. Side effects worse than disease Parkinson's is a debilitating condition which causes slowly-spreading tremors and worsening muscular weakness that can lead to muscular rigidity. It is believed to be caused by the death of nerve cells that normally produce dopamine, a brain messenger chemical that plays a key role in controlling movement. There is no known cure, but drugs such as levodopa - a generic drug developed in the late 1960s and sold by various companies - can control the symptons. Patients typically get good symptom relief after beginning use of levodopa, which is converted by the body into dopamine, but then require ever-increasing amounts of the drug to achieve the same benefits. They then may develop side effects such as severe involuntary movements which can be as disabling or worse than Parkinson's itself. Requip is one of a new class of drugs called dopamine agonists, which mimic the effects of dopamine without actually creating more of the messenger chemical. The drug may still have side-effects including confusion, upset stomach, lightheadedness, hallucinations and sleepiness, but researchers say these are not as disabling as the involuntary body movements. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/health/newsid_404000/404629.stm> BBC News Online: Health janet paterson 52 now / 41 dx / 37 onset snail-mail: PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada website: a new voice <http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/6263/> e-mail: <[log in to unmask]>