Study Highlights Importance of Personalized Parkinson’s Treatment
Invasive treatment approaches for advanced Parkinson’s disease have differential effects on disease-associated motor and non-motor symptoms, a real-life observational study shows.
These findings suggest that selection of a treatment should be based on each patient’s particular clinical profile, researchers say.
The study, “EuroInf 2: Subthalamic stimulation, apomorphine, and levodopa infusion in Parkinson’s disease,” was published in Movement Disorders.
Parkinson’s is a progressive neurological disease mostly recognized for its motor symptoms, such as tremor, bradykinesia (impaired body movement control), and muscular rigidity. In advanced cases, oral therapies may not be sufficient to control these motor symptoms and patients often require device-aided therapies.
There are three well-established, safe, and effective treatments to improve quality of life and alleviate motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease: deep brain stimulation, intrajejunal levodopa infusion (IJLI), and Apokyn (apomorphine) infusion (APO).
In deep brain stimulation, electrodes are surgically implanted in certain areas of a patient’s brain. Through electrical signals received from a small device, the electrodes will stimulate these brain areas to produce dopamine — the chemical compound (neurotransmitter) lacking in Parkinson’s disease.
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IJLI is one of the most influential therapies used in patients with moderate to late-stage Parkinson’s disease, shown to have positive effects on both motor and non-motor symptoms and quality of life. This approach uses a portable infusion pump that continuously dispenses levodopa gel through a tube inserted into the intestine.
Apokyn is an engineered therapy that mimics dopamine’s ability to stimulate nerve cells. Unlike other dopamine agonist agents, Apokyn is administrated by injection or continuous infusion using a pump.
Despite the demonstrated efficacy of these therapies, there is little information comparing their impact.
An international group of researchers, on behalf of the EUROPAR and the Non-motor Parkinson’s Disease Study Group of the International Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Society, compared the differential effects of DBS applied to the subthalamic nucleus (STN), IJLI, and APO in patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease.
The study included 101 Parkinson’s patients who underwent bilateral STN-DBS, 33 who received IJLI, and 39 patients who received APO treatment. Patients had a mean age of 62.3 years and had been diagnosed with the disease for a mean of 12.1 years.
Six months after receiving the treatment, patients were evaluated to determine changes in Parkinson’s symptoms.
Significant improvements concerning non-motor symptoms and motor-related complications were noted in the three groups of patients six months after receiving the treatment, as determined by the Nonmotor Symptom Scale (NMSS) and Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale-motor complications (UPDRS-IV), respectively.
Significant changes in quality of life, as assessed by the Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire-8 Summary Index (PDQ-8 SI), were also reported by all treatment groups during follow-up.
IJLI and APO treatments were found to effectively prevent disease worsening during the follow-up period, according to Hoehn and Yahr scores, which rate severity of symptoms in Parkinson’s disease.
STN-DBS treatment reduced the amount of daily levodopa use by approximately 52%. As expected, levodopa equivalent daily dose remained stable in infusion therapies.
The three treatment approaches were found to have similar effects on dyskinesia (involuntary movements)/motor fluctuation ratios. In contrast, they had different effects on patients’ non-motor symptoms.
A more detailed analysis showed that STN-DBS had a significant positive effect on sleep and fatigue, mood and cognition, perceptual problems and hallucinations, urinary symptoms, and sexual function.
IJLI had a positive effect on sleep, mood, and cognition, and gastrointestinal symptoms, while APO therapy significantly improved patients’ mood and cognition, lessened occurrence of perceptual problems and hallucinations, as well as improved attention and memory.
In general, STN-DBS and IJLI seemed to improve non-motor symptom burden, and APO therapy was favorable for neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric symptoms and improved quality of life.
Patients who underwent IJLI treatment had more frequent non-serious adverse events (abdominal pain and gastrointestinal symptoms) immediately after the procedure, compared to those in the other two groups.
“Distinct effect profiles were identified for each treatment option,” researchers said. “This study highlights the importance of holistic assessments of motor as well as non-motor aspects of Parkinson’s that could provide a means to personalize treatment options to patients’ individual disease profiles.”
