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THURSDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthScoutNews) -- Levodopa, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease, appears to improve the results of physical therapy for stroke patients, German neurologists report.
Results of a small study of just 53 patients are encouraging enough that a multicenter European trial is being planned, says Dr. Friedemann Muller, a neurologist at Bad Aibling Neurological Hospital and lead author of a paper reporting the results in the Sept. 8 issue of The Lancet.
In the study, stroke patients who received daily doses of levodopa -- also known as L-dopa -- during the first three weeks of physical therapy had significantly better scores on a standard test of physical function than those who got a placebo, an inactive ingredient.
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"We were surprised that the results were statistically significant for a small number of patients," Muller says. "There have been anecdotal reports that levodopa can improve motor learning after a stroke, but no study up to now has shown it in a scientific fashion."
The L-dopa effect appears to be different in stroke patients than in those with Parkinson's disease, Muller says. In the body, the drug is metabolized first to dopamine and then to norepinephrine, molecules involved in nerve activity. Parkinson's patients benefit from dopamine, while stroke patients probably benefit from the stimulating effect of norepinephrine, Muller says.
The planned trial will test different dosing schedules of levodopa, he says. Even before that testing begins, "some of my colleagues are already using it on a daily basis" because they believe levodopa is a very safe drug, he says.
Dr. Edgar J. Kenton, chairman of the American Stroke Association's advisory committee and professor of clinical neurology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, says the beneficial effects of levodopa can be explained by its activity as a stimulant.
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