"Two new studies suggest that rotigotine, an anti-Parkinson's medication now under review by the Food and Drug Administration, could be added to the standard treatment for the disease.

"This is really one of those moments in medicine when we can say that we are looking at the possibility of fundamentally changing the way we treat a major disease," Dr. Warren Olanow, a leading Parkinson's expert and professor of neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said at a news briefing earlier this week.

In Parkinson's disease, for reasons not fully understood, nerve cells in the part of the brain that produces the neurotransmitter chemical dopamine begin to decrease in number. This decline causes a decrease in the amount of available dopamine.

Currently approved treatment delivers the drug levodopa through a pill and intestinal absorption, but the level of dopamine that the brain needs (and is missing in Parkinson's disease) fluctuates during levodopa treatment in what is called the peak-and-trough effect. The result is eventual loss of motor control.

Rotigotine, however, is delivered continuously via a skin patch, which allows the level of dopamine in the blood and brain to remain constant.

"Motor complications are common in Parkinson's disease, in as many as 80 percent of patients treated with levodopa for five years or more," Olanow told United Press International. "They can be a major source of disability for some patients. Patch rotigotine is associated with a constant plasma level and accordingly should be associated with a marked reduction in motor complications in comparison to levodopa."

Results of the two new studies were presented Sept. 18 in Athens at the annual meeting of the European Federation of Neurological Societies."CLICK FOR MORE: MedlinePlus