Abstract

Background: Levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG; carbidopa-levodopa enteral suspension in the United States), delivered via percutaneous gastrojejunostomy (PEG-J) and titrated in the inpatient setting, is an established treatment option for advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with motor fluctuations. However, long-term prospective data on the efficacy of LCIG on non-motor symptoms and the safety of outpatient titration are limited.

Methods: In this 60-week, open-label phase 3b study, LCIG titration was initiated in an outpatient setting following PEG-J placement in PD patients. The efficacy of LCIG on motor and non-motor symptoms, quality of life, and safety was assessed.

Results: Thirty-nine patients were enrolled in the study and 28 patients completed the treatment. A majority of patients (54%) completed outpatient titration within the first week of LCIG infusion. LCIG led to significant reductions from baseline in Non-Motor Symptom Scale (NMSS) total score (least squares mean ± SE = −17.6 ± 3.6, P < 0.001) and 6 of the NMSS domain scores (sleep/fatigue, attention/memory, gastrointestinal tract, urinary, sexual function, miscellaneous) at week 12. These reductions were maintained at week 60 with the exception of the urinary domain. “Off” time (−4.9 ± 0.5 hours/day, P < 0.001) and “On” time without troublesome dyskinesia (−4.3 ± 0.6 hours/day, P < 0.001) were improved at week 60. Adverse events (AEs) were reported in 37 (95%) patients.

Conclusions: LCIG treatment led to reductions in non-motor symptom burden and motor fluctuations in advanced PD patients. The safety profile was consistent with previous studies that used inpatient titration and outpatient titration did not appear to pose additional risk.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-20-2017

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Movement Disorders Clinical Practice, v. 4, issue 6, p. 829-837.

© 2017 The Authors. Movement Disorders Clinical Practice published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1002/mdc3.12526

Funding Information

D.G.S. is a member of the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is supported by endowment and University funds. Dr. Standaert is an investigator in studies funded by Abbvie, Inc., the American Parkinson's Disease Association, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, Alabama Department of Commerce, and NIH grants P01NS087997, P20NS087997, R25NS079188, P2CHD086851, and P30NS047466.

Due to the large number of funding sources, only the first few are listed in this section. For the complete list of funding sources, please download this article.

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