Based on drug class, the market has been further segmented into Levodopa combination, dopamine agonists, MAO-B Inhibitors,
COMT Inhibitors, and others.
Both were clinical trials with
COMT inhibitors. One of them [19] used WOQ-9 and reported improvement in most items in proportion of patients with improvements; however, it did not provide data to calculate the effect size.
* Catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitors (
COMT inhibitors) These are prescribed for people in later stages of Parkinson's disease.
COMT inhibitors may boost levodopa/carbidopa's effects
The number of subjects receiving
COMT inhibitors concomitant with L-dopa therapy was 12 (52.2%).
Evidence indicates adding
COMT inhibitors to levodopa therapy can reduce the end-of-dose failure patients experience as the effect of levodopa decreases, and also decrease the motor fluctuations (Chan et al., 2008; Damier, Viallet, Ziegler, Bourdeix, & Rerat, 2008).
The claim that this may prevent later motor complications needs to be further substantiated, but there may be a role for early introduction of
COMT inhibitors with levodopa.
On the other hand, we found no significant role of
COMT inhibitors in sparing SAM or lowering tHcy in L-dopatreated patients.
The
COMT inhibitors tolcapone and entacapone are other new additions.
They believe that one way could be to offer targeted therapies with drugs like
COMT inhibitors to carriers of the gene.