Elias Eriksson
University of Gothenburg
Sweden
Treatment of late stages of Parkinson´s disease with a highly concentrated DOPA solution administered subcutaneously or intravenously ? a national, multicenter, academia-based trial
Swedish Research Council
1,227,421
01-01-2014
3
Parkinson's disease & PD-related disorders
Late-stage Parkinson’s disease (PD), responding to oral DOPA with rapid shifts between impaired locomotion and drug-induced dyskinesias (on-off), causes immense suffering and huge societal costs. Brief inpatient studies having shown that stabilizing serum DOPA levels by means of iv infusion dampens on-off, a logical outpatient approach would be to administer DOPA by means of an sc pump. Until now, this has however been impossible because of the poor solubility of DOPA; the amount of vehicle would hence exceed what can be given at a continuous basis. Neurologist Nil Dizdar Segrell in Linköping however discovered that DOPA in fact can be dissolved at high concentrations (Infudopa), hence enabling prolonged administration sc or iv, the former likely to enhance functioning of outpatients and the latter to enable surgery (for other conditions) in patients which are today deemed unfit for operation because of poor motor control. The aim of this project is to expedite a prompt clinical introduction of sc and iv Infudopa in Sweden and elsewhere; to this end, a multi-centre academia-based study will be undertaken to confirm that iv or sc administration of infudopa causes as stable serum levels of DOPA as does duodopa, an established pump-based treatment for on-off which however, unlike duodopa sc, requires surgery, since the DOPA is administered by a tube placed in the small intestines. The study will be undertaken by researchers in Linköping, Stockholm, Uppsala, Lund and Gothenburg.