New drug offers hope for patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) - A new drug, rasigiline, is an excellent addition to the small arsenal of weapons that can help the motor functions of people with advanced Parkinson's disease, a study published in The Lancet says.

Rasigiline was tested among people suffering from dyskenesia -- involuntary twitches of the face, body and limbs, which very often occurs among patients who have been taking the Parkinson's drug levodopa for a number of years.

The dyskenesia also usually occurs alongside a condition called motor fluctuations: unpredictable periods in the day when levodopa fails to work.

The two conditions can be very destructive for people with Parkinson's, sometimes ruining their work and social life.

The conventional treatment is to change the levadopa dose, making the dose smaller but administering it more frequently, and taking one of a small group of adjuvant drugs. But these medications often give only a small improvement and add to the patient's burden of managing a complex drug schedule.

An 18-week trial of 687 long-term Parkinson's patients saw rasigiline tested as an adjuvant alongside another drug in this category called entacapone, and against a placebo, a harmless dummy treatment.

Rasiligine was effective in tackling dyskenesia and was as good as entacapone in reducing the "off time," when motor functions failed to respond to levadopa, by around 1.2 hours per day on average. In addition, the drug was simple to use, as a single oral daily dose, and was well tolerated.

"Rasigiline is an effective, safe and simple treatment for Parkinson's, when used in combination with levodopa," said chief researcher Olivier Rascol of University Hospital in Toulouse, southwestern France.

Parkinson's is a currently incurable, degenerative disease of the nervous system, affecting more than one percent of people over the age of 65.

It occurs when there is a loss of cells in a part of the brain that produces dopamine, a neurotransmitter that communicates with other brain cells which regulate motor functions. Symptoms range from tremors and awkwardness and muscular stiffness to a distinctive shuffling gait.

Well-known sufferers include Pope John Paul II and the actor Michael J. Fox.