Parkinsonism & related disorders
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Parkinsonism Relat. Disord. · Aug 2020
Long-term evaluation of open-label pimavanserin safety and tolerability in Parkinson's disease psychosis.
Pimavanserin is a selective 5-HT2A inverse agonist/antagonist approved for treating hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson's disease psychosis (PDP). Results from short-term, placebo-controlled studies demonstrated a positive benefit/risk profile. This multi-year, open-label study assessed long-term safety and tolerability of pimavanserin. ⋯ Long-term treatment with pimavanserin 34 mg once daily demonstrated a favorable benefit/risk profile with no unexpected safety concerns. Mortality rates suggested no increased risk following long-term treatment.
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Parkinsonism Relat. Disord. · Jun 2020
Parkinson's disease motor subtypes and bilateral GPi deep brain stimulation: One-year outcomes.
We aimed to explore the differences in motor symptoms and quality of life (QOL) outcomes following bilateral globus pallidus internus deep brain stimulation (GPi DBS), across well-defined motor subtypes of Parkinson's disease (PD), to improve clinical decision making. ⋯ Bilateral GPi DBS was effective for advanced PD patients regardless of motor subtypes. Greater tremor improvement in the TD patients accounted for greater Off-medication motor improvement. Longer-term GPi DBS outcomes across different motor subtypes and brain targets should be further studied.
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Parkinsonism Relat. Disord. · Nov 2019
Longitudinal intracortical diffusivity changes in de-novo Parkinson's disease: A promising imaging biomarker.
Cognitive impairment and dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD) are highly disabling non-motor symptoms with no effective treatment currently available. As cortical degeneration is thought to be involved in the development of these comorbidities, novel imaging biomarkers capable of detecting early cortical deterioration are needed. Recently, an increase in mean diffusivity (MD) within the cerebral cortex has been proposed as a highly sensitive imaging indicator of early microstructural cortical damage in neurodegenerative diseases. ⋯ These PD-specific MD changes correlated with changes in cognitive measures. Importantly, cortical MD increases were widespread in the PD group and loss of cortical thickness was only increased in a small parietal cluster. These results suggest that intracortical MD changes could be promising imaging biomarker in clinical trials targeting the prevention and treatment of early cortical degeneration in PD, but further research confirmation is needed.