[Current therapy of idiopathic Parkinson disease. 2: Recent and alternative therapies]

New possibilities in the medical treatment of Parkinson's disease are offered by the MAO-B inhibitor, selegiline, and L-dopa preparations with strongly accelerated or retarded kinetics. Possible new approaches to drug treatment might be, firstly, inhibition of the enzyme catechol-o-methyl-transferase, which influences the breakdown of dopamine, and secondly, administration of NADH with the aim of stimulating the body's own synthesis of dopamine. A third approach might be the reintroduction of stereotactic surgery with coagulation or stimulation of certain areas of the brain, that has now been made possible by the development of new and more subtle techniques. Neuroprotective and/or neuro-regenerative approaches, such as, for example, the administration or stimulation of growth factors and/or transplantation of neuronal dopaminergic cells might lead the treatment of Parkinson's disease from the palliative symptomatic approach it is today, to a future curative approach.