Parkinson's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Parkinson's Disease, including details on symptoms, treatment, genetics, medication.

The effects of acute loading with levodopa and levodopa with selegiline on blood pressure and plasma norepinephrine levels in chronic Parkinson's disease patients.

Stryjer R, Klein C, Treves TA, Rabey JM

Department of Neurology, Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, Zerifin, Israel.

OBJECTIVES: Contradictory possible cardiovascular side effects of selegiline have been reported. Therefore, we studied the effect of acute administration of selegiline with levodopa (LD) compared with LD alone, on blood pressure, pulse and norepinephrine (NE) plasma levels, during an orthostatic test on chronically treated Parkinson's disease patients (PDpts) and controls. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twelve PDpts treated with LD (group D), 12 PDpts treated with selegiline and LD (group S) and eight volunteers (CTRL) underwent the orthostatic test. Patients repeated the test twice, before and after acute loading with 125 mg LD (group D) and 125 mg LD +5 mg selegiline (group S). RESULTS: Group S showed more episodes of postural hypotension (n = 10; two symptomatic) than group D (n = 4) and CTRL (n = 2), however not statistically significant. Plasma NE also rose significantly higher (P < 0.001) in group S. CONCLUSION: PD patients treated with selegiline showed more orthostatism and higher plasma NE after submission to the orthostatic test. These findings may be relevant to explain its deleterious effect.

Published 12 January 2005 in Acta Neurol Scand, 111(2): 89-94.
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