Double-blind comparison of pramipexole and bromocriptine treatment with placebo in advanced Parkinson's disease

Pramipexole is a new, selective, nonergoline dopamine agonist that acts on D-2 and preferentially on D-3 dopamine receptors. Phase II and III clinical trials have shown this drug to be useful in treating both early and advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. A double-blind, randomized, multicenter study was performed to compare the safety, tolerance, and efficacy of pramipexole versus placebo in patients with advanced PD with motor fluctuations. A bromocriptine treatment group was included to enable comparisons between bromocriptine and placebo groups, but the study was not powered to show statistical differences between the active treatment groups. The study included 247 patients with ''wearing off.'' Patients were Hoehn and Yahr stages II to IV during ''on'' times. The trial included three phases: dose escalation, 6 months' maintenance, and dose reduction. The primary end points were the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) parts II and III. Up to 4.5 mg per day of pramipexole and 30 mg per day bf bromocriptine were used. The results of the study showed that the UPDRS part II improved by 26.7% for pramipexole (p = 0.0002) and 14% for bromocriptine (p = 0.02) versus 4.8% for placebo. The UPDRS part III showed improvements of 34% for pramipexole (p = 0.0006) and 23.8% for bromocriptine (p = 0.01) versus 5.7% for placebo. There were no major differences in safety data. In the active treatment groups there were more reports of dyskinesia and nausea compared with placebo. In regard to comparison of the Global Clinical Assessment of Efficacy between active treatment groups, there was a trend to significance (p = 0.056) in favor of pramipexole. We conclude that pramipexole-treated patients with advanced PD improved significantly more than placebo for both primary end points.