Tremorlytic activity of budipine in Parkinson's disease

To objectively quantify the tremorlytic activity of budipine in Parkinson's disease (PD), we performed long-term tremor recordings in addition to the Columbia University Rating Scale (CURS) in a subset of patients (n = 14) who enrolled in a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Tremor occurrence improved in the budipine group (n = 7) from 24.7 +/- 15.5% to 14.8 +/- 14.5% (p < 0.05). Tremor intensity decreased from 9.1 +/- 2.5 (signal-to-noise ratio) to 7.2 +/- 1.6. The CURS sum score improved from 5.7 to 3.0 in the budipine group, whereas there was only a small improvement in the placebo group (from 7.1 to 5.5). These data suggest that budipine is an effective tremorlytic agent in PD and that it may be used as an alternative to anticholinergics.