Effect of Levodopa on Cardiovascular Autonomic Function in Parkinson's Disease
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2024-08-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Levodopa is a precursor of dopamine and is the treatment of choice to treat the motor
symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD); however, the effect of levodopa on cardiovascular
autonomic function in PD is poorly understood. Orthostatic hypotension has been documented as
a potential side effect of levodopa. As a result, clinicians may be reluctant to prescribe
levodopa in patients with PD with neurogenic orthostatic hypotension (PD+OH), which leads to
suboptimal management of motor symptoms. On the other hand, other studies failed to show any
clear relationship between levodopa and orthostatic hypotension in patients with PD.
Important limitations of prior studies include the lack of detailed investigation of
baroreflex cardiovagal and sympathetic noradrenergic functions and the fact that the same
patients were not tested on and off levodopa.
The investigators propose to investigate the effects of levodopa on cardiovascular autonomic
function in patients with PD+OH and PD without neurogenic orthostatic hypotension (PD-OH) by
performing standardized autonomic testing in the same patients on and off levodopa.