A new study by Dr Mark Stacey of Duke University Medical Center found that Istradfeylline may help Parkinson's patients fight the spasms, tremors and tics they experience when their main medications wear off.
Many Parkinson's patients experience a "wearing off" of their medication meaning that patients become habituated current drug regimes and experience more the side effects of the illness more severely.
Istradfeylline functions by helping nerve and brain signals bypass the damaged dopamine system in the brain. A study of 395 patients taking Levodopa found that those taking istradfeylline had 24% less "off" time which is how physical symptoms are described once levodopa wears off. The group taking a placebo has a 10% decrease in "off" time. "These results suggest that istradefylline is effective as an add-on therapy to other drugs that treat symptoms of Parkinson's disease. More importantly, this medication seems to improve 'off' time in a population in which more than 90 percent of patients are already being treated with two or more drugs," stated Stacey.
Further development of the drug has been suspended due to the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's refusal to approve the drug stating that evidence supporting its effectivness was insufficient.
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