Pergolide Mesylate: New Therapy for Parkinson Disease

Excerpt

The side effects of chronic levodopa therapy are rarely as disabling as Parkinson disease itself. Many patients, however, after years of levodopa therapy at doses needed to control parkinsonism, are disabled by dyskinesias or psychoses. Others experience a progressive shortening of levodopa's effect (reduced "on" time) after each dose or sudden, freezing episodes (the "on/off" phenomenon) not related to dose. These therapeutic difficulties have encouraged a search for other antiparkinsonian agents. Because the primary neurohumoral defect in patients with Parkinson disease is loss of striatal dopamine, much research has focused on direct-acting dopamine agonists.

Pergolide mesylate, a synthetic cousin of