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Background Epidemiologic studies show that smokers have a lower incidence of Parkinson's disease. Nicotine has been hypothesized to slow progression in early Parkinson's disease. Methods In a double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial, we randomly assigned patients with Parkinson's disease, diagnosed within 18 months, who were in Hoehn and Yahr disease stage less than or equal to 2 (range from 0 to 5; higher scores indicate greater impairment), who were therapy naïve (except for stable monoamine-oxidase-B inhibition), and not requiring dopaminergic therapy, to transdermal nicotine or placebo. The primary end point was change in Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale parts I--III (Total UPDRS) score (range from 0 to 172; higher scores indicate greater impairment) between baseline and 60 weeks (52 weeks of trial therapy, 8 weeks of washout). The first secondary end point was change in Total UPDRS from baseline to 52 weeks. Differences between groups were estimated using the Hodges--Lehmann (HL) method and tested with the exact two-sided stratified Mann--Whitney--Wilcoxon test according to the intention-to-treat principle. Results Among 163 participants, 101 were assessed for the primary end point. Mean worsening of Total UPDRS was 3.5 in the placebo versus 6.0 in the nicotine group (HL-difference with 95% CI: --3 [--6 to 0], P=0.06). For the first secondary end point, analysis of 138 participants showed a mean worsening of 5.4 in the placebo versus 9.1 in the nicotine group (HL-difference with 95% CI: --4 [--7 to --1]). Dropout was mainly because of early treatment discontinuation or adverse events. Cutaneous adverse effects at the patch application site were common. In all, 34.6% of participants initiated dopaminergic therapy during participation. Conclusions One-year transdermal nicotine treatment did not slow progression in early Parkinson's disease. (Funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01560754; EudraCT number, 2010-020299-42.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Oral cholinesterase inhibitors at doses efficacious for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are often prematurely discontinued due to gastrointestinal side effects. In controlled clinical trials, transdermal rivastigmine demonstrated less such effects at similar efficacy. The current study aimed to verify the validity of this data in daily practice. Methods: This was a prospective, multicenter, observational study on transdermal rivastigmine in Germany. Eligible patients were those with AD who had not yet been treated with rivastigmine. Outcome measures were changes in clock-drawing test, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Caregiver Burden Scale, Clinical Global Impression (CGI), physicians' assessments of tolerability, and the incidence of adverse events (AEs) over 4 months of treatment. Results: In 257 centers 1113 patients were enrolled; 614 women and 499 men, mean age 76.5 years. In 58% of patients AD was treated for the first time and in 42% therapy was switched to transdermal rivastigmine, mostly due to lack of tolerability (13.6%) or effectiveness (26.9%). After 4 months, 67.4% of patients were on the target dose of 9.5 mg/day and 21.8% were still on 4.6 mg/day. MMSE significantly improved in patients with and without pretreatment (ΔMMSE, 0.9 ± 3.4 and 0.8 ± 3.4, respectively, both P < 0.001); the CGI score improved in 60.9% and 61.3% of patients, respectively. Overall 11.7% of patients had AEs, mainly affecting the skin or the gastrointestinal tract; in 1.1% of cases AEs were serious; 14.7% of patients discontinued therapy, 6.0% due to AEs. With rivastigmine treatment the percentage of patients taking psychotropic comedication decreased, particularly in first-time treated rivastigmine patients (from 27.1% to 22.6%; P < 0.001). Conclusion: Results were in line with data from controlled clinical trials. Switching from any other oral acetylcholinesterase inhibitor to transdermal rivastigmine may improve cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]