DOUBLE-BLIND-STUDY OF THE ACTIVITY AND TOLERABILITY OF CABERGOLINE VERSUS PLACEBO IN PARKINSONIANS WITH MOTOR FLUCTUATIONS

The use of a dopamine agonist with a long duration of action has theor etical advantages in attempting to reduce the motor fluctuations in Pa rkinson's disease. We report the results of a double-blind controlled study of adding cabergoline, an ergot derivative with potent long-last ing high affinity for the D2 receptor, to levodopa therapy in 37 patie nts with severe fluctuations in response to treatment, Increasing dosa ges of cabergoline (19 patients) or placebo (18 patients) were added t o each patient's stable levodopa regime. The two patient groups were s imilar at baseline in terms of age, disease duration, duration of levo dopa treatment, and average hours ''off'' per day. Following increment al dose titration, patients in the cabergoline group had a significant reduction in hours ''off'' per day from 5.0 (SD 2.1) to 3.0 (SD 2.5), but there was no change in this measure in the placebo group [4.0 (2. 2) and 3.3 (2.3) respectively]. This was not at the expense of a signi ficant increase in dyskinesia. However, there was no difference betwee n the groups when comparing their average Hoehn and Yahr stage of dise ase, and Schwab and England activities of daily living index.