Levodopa/carbidopa/entacapone 200/50/200 mg (Stalevo 200) in the treatment of Parkinson's disease: a case series.
Levodopa continues to be the most efficacious and widely used treatment for Parkinson's disease. Levodopa dosing is understood to be critical for the optimal control of symptoms, and increasing the levodopa dose is a common method to treat advancing disease. Escalating levodopa dosages coupled with disease progression is associated with increasing likelihood of developing levodopa-induced dyskinesia. Moreover, frequent and complicated dosing schemes, combined with limited dose availability, leads to increasing pill burden and its associated impairment of patient adherence issues. Levodopa/carbidopa/entacapone has been shown to improve the pharmacokinetic profile of levodopa and provide superior symptomatic control compared with conventional levodopa/dopa decarboxylase inhibitor therapy. We report four case histories describing clinical experience of using levodopa/carbidopa/entacapone 200/50/200 mg, one of the latest doses of this formulation, in a range of patients with Parkinson's disease. These cases illustrate that levodopa/carbidopa/entacapone 200/50/200 mg provides improvements in symptomatic control and convenience, and that switching to this dose was not associated with safety concerns.
Sethi
Kapil D
KD
Movement Disorders Program, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia 30912, USA. ksethi@mail.mcg.edu
Hauser
Robert A
RA
Isaacson
Stuart H
SH
McClain
Terry
T