RLS in the media: s Hopkins Health Information: Health News

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Howdy,

Thought this might be of interest. From the s Hopkins Health site, URL:

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH?t=333&st=333&r=EMIHC000&c=205792

Aparently recycled from the journal _Neurology_.

Parkinson's drug

relieves restless-leg

symptoms

December 30, 1998

(NYT Syndicate) - People whose legs jump, itch,

tingle or feel otherwise restless at night (and for

some, throughout the day) may get relief from a

medication used to treat Parkinson's disease,

according to researchers at s Hopkins

University in Baltimore.

In a small study of patients with moderate to

severe restless legs syndrome (RLS), the drug

pergolide (marketed as Permax by Athena

Neurosciences) improved sleeping patterns and

decreased the number of hours per day symptoms

occurred.

RLS is a sleep disorder in which a person

experiences unpleasant sensations in the legs

characterized as creeping, crawling, tingling,

pulling or painful. These sensations usually occur

in the calf but may be felt from the thigh to the

ankle and may affect one or both legs.

Moving, walking, rubbing or massaging the legs

may bring temporary relief, but most sufferers lose

sleep and many also suffer symptoms during the

day. In many cases, the cause of RLS is unknown,

but it can be related to an underlying medical

condition such as iron deficiency, kidney failure or

diabetes. RLS also may strike during pregnancy.

Dr. J. Earley and his colleagues

studied 16 patients with RLS who received either

pergolide or placebo for 18 days. Patients were

given a maximum number of pills and told they

could take as few or as many as they felt they

needed to achieve symptom relief. An all-night

sleep study was performed two days before

initiating treatment and during the last two days of

the drug treatment.

Compared with patients on placebo, those taking

pergolide had greater improvement in their ability to

sleep for prolonged periods and greater reductions

in leg movements per hour. Prior to treatment,

patients in the pergolide group had an average of

49 leg movements per hour, which decreased to

14.5 leg movements per hour with treatment. The

rate of leg movements in the placebo group did not

change.

Patients on pergolide also experienced a decrease

in the amount of time per day they suffered

symptoms. Prior to treatment, the pergolide group

reported symptoms lasting an average of seven

hours a day, which decreased to less than two

hours a day with treatment. By comparison, the

placebo group experienced an increase in the

number of hours each day that they had

symptoms, the team reported.

Pergolide is used to treat the symptoms of

Parkinson's disease. Other Parkinson's drugs,

such as levodopa, have been used to treat restless

legs syndrome with varying degrees of success.

Levodopa cannot relieve symptoms throughout the

night and loses its effectiveness after long-term

use, while pergolide, which has properties similar

to levodopa, appears to maintain its effectiveness

at night. The long-term effectiveness of pergolide

for treating restless legs syndrome is not yet

known.

According to Kiley, director of the National

Center on Sleep Disorders Research at the

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in

Bethesda, Md., the study is important because

treatment recommendations for restless legs

syndrome are a " mixed bag " with no gold standard.

" This is clearly a condition that has a neurological

basis and it is not clear right now that the

symptoms are consistent from patient-to-patient, "

he said. " What most physicians do is try a variety

of things depending on the severity of symptoms,

the person's age, etc. "

Added Kiley, " Up till now there haven't been many

well-controlled, randomized trials and so this study

does take a step in the right direction. Obviously,

as the authors point out, the study is small and I

don't think we know about the long-term effects of

pergolide in treating RLS. We need to get

information on long-term use and we also need to

know if we can generalize the results of such a

small trial. "

Neurology (1998;51:1599-1602)

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Syndicate.

All rights reserved.