[Monotherapy of Parkinson's disease with budipine. A double blind comparison with amantadine]

In a randomised double blind parallel-group study in three centers budipine, a diphenylpiperidin derivate, was compared to amantadine with respect to efficacy and safety in the monotherapy of mild to moderate Parkinson's disease (PD). From 53 patients of either sex 27 patients were randomised to 3 x 20 mg/d budipine and 26 patients to 3 x 100 mg/d amantadine. The duration of treatment was 4 weeks in 1 center (21 patients) and 12 weeks in the other 2 centers (32 patients). Safety was measured by vital signs, ECG, adverse event recording and clinical laboratory. Both drugs caused a clinically relevant and statistically significant (p < 0.001) improvement of Parkinsonian symptoms according to the Webster-Rating-Scale (WRS) as compared to pretreatment values. With respect to the total WRS score sum there was no difference between the groups (p > 0.05; n.s.), while budipine showed a significantly (p < 0.05) better effect on the main symptom tremor after 12 weeks. During amantadine treatment more adverse events were observed than after budipine intake. Two patients left the study prematurely, one in the amantadine group due to psychiatric adverse events and one in the budipine group because of insufficient efficacy.