Tremorlytic activity of budipine: a quantitative study with long-term tremor recordings

The tremorlytic activity of the novel antiparkinson agent budipine was quantified in an open trial. Eleven patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) were treated with individual doses of budipine added to stable conventional antiparkinsonian medication. Tremor activity was measured using long-term electromyogram (EMG) recordings. Tremor intensity was reduced by 25%, tremor occurrence by 34%, and conventional "Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale" (UPDRS) scores improved by 20% with this medication. There were two dropouts because of side effects. One dropout appeared not to be related to budipine. Apart from those, the drug was well tolerated by all patients. We conclude that budipine is an effective and well-tolerated tremorlytic drug and that the method of long-term EMG recording is suitable for tremor quantification in clinical studies.