If Parkinson’s disease is detected early and treatment started as soon as possible, it can slow down the progression of the disease, a conference heard yesterday.
Delegates at the Meeting of the European Neurological Society in Prague heard that there are grounds for “cautious optimism” for patients with the disease, even though neuropsychiatric disorders continue to soar across the continent.
Estimates by the European Brain Council indicate that in the 27 EU member states, plus Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland, there are 81 million people with neuropsychiatric disorders – almost 16 per cent of the 514-million strong population.
Professor Dr Heinz Reichmann, from Carl Gustav Carus University Clinic, Dresden, and president of the European Neurological Society (ENS), told the 22nd ENS Meeting: “The economic burden this implies is not less than 798 billion euros – gigantic costs which we can only control by consistent preventive action and intensified research efforts.”
However, he told the 3,000 experts from all over the world who have gathered to discuss the latest developments in their field, that the latest discoveries relating to Parkinson’s disease offered some hope.
“We are able to treat Parkinson’s disease patients substantially better than even a few years ago, and improved understanding of this illness should mean that even more effective therapies can be expected,” he explained.
The conference will discuss the theory that Parkinson’s disease starts to develop in the nerve cells of the sense of smell and reproduces itself cell for cell, before moving towards the stomach and from there to the brain via the pneumogastric nerve.
“This knowledge may one day open up the possibility of diagnosing the illness much earlier, and preventing its further development,” said Professor Reichmann.
“As for the reasons why it breaks out in the first place, we are discussing newly-discovered genetic risk factors, harmful environmental influences such as poisons, for example carbon monoxide or manganese etc, or viruses or bacteria.
“Parkinson’s disease most probably results from the combination of a genetic pre-disposition to greater-than-usual sensitivity to environmental influences. With each such discovery we get closer to the vision of new genetic therapies as well as effective prevention strategies.”
A step toward effective prevention may already have succeeded.
“While we previously thought that standard therapy with so-called dopamine agonists and MAO inhibitors only made sense when symptoms led to disabilities, there are now studies which show otherwise,” he went on.
“Immediate treatment with the MAO-B inhibitor rasagiline, in some cases selegiline as well, seems to prevent degradation of quality of life.”
Improved and innovative therapies might also be available soon for patients who are already suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease and the intense dyskinesia associated with it.
First long-term studies have shown successful results for apomorphine pumps, which continuously deliver the dopamine agonists apomorphine into the bloodstream. There have also been positive results with L-dopa pumps, which deliver this substance into the small intestine through a very small implanted hose.
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