Abstract
Background: Safinamide, a recently developed drug with several mechanisms of action has been investigated as an add-on therapy for Parkinson's disease patients suffering from motor complications due to the usage of anti-Parkinson's medications such as levodopa and dopaminergic drugs. The aim of the study is to investigate the efficacy and safety of Safinamide as add-on therapy for Parkinson's disease patients. Methods: A computerized literature search was conducted of PubMed, EMBASE, ClinicalTrial.gov and Cochrane Library until August 2019. We selected relevant randomized controlled trials comparing safinamide groups to placebo groups. Relevant outcomes were pooled as mean difference (MD) and risk ratio (RR) using Review Manager 5.3. Results: We found that the overall MD of changes in "off-time" and "on time without troublesome dyskinesia" favored the safinamide group over the placebo group (MD -0.72 h, 95% CI -0.89 to -0.56 and MD 0.71 h, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.90, respectively). Additionally, the overall MD of change in Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale part three (UPDRS III) favored the safinamide group (MD -1.83, 95% CI -2.43 to -1.23). In case of adverse events, the pooled meta-analysis did not favor the safinamide group over the placebo group. Conclusions: In this study, we provide class I evidence about the potential role of safinamide as an add-on therapy for Parkinson's disease patients suffering from motor fluctuations. However, a few included studies did not mention the data of important outcomes. Also, we report high risk of bias in individual studies. Future randomized controlled trials with different doses are recommended to provide more evidence for the efficacy and safety of safinamide as a treatment for motor complications of anti-Parkinson's medications.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease prevalence in the fourth decade of life is 41 people per 100,000 and increases to 1,900 people per 100,000 among those who are older than 801
Some of them suggest that usage of safinamide improves quality of life and delays the motor deterioration of Parkinson’s disease; our study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of safinamide use for Parkinson’s patients
After the complete screening process of titles, abstracts, and full texts, 154 studies did not meet the eligibility criteria and six articles with six randomized controlled trials remained with a total of (2556) patients included in the meta-analysis[9,10,11,12,13,14]
Summary
Parkinson’s disease prevalence in the fourth decade of life is 41 people per 100,000 and increases to 1,900 people per 100,000 among those who are older than 801. The main pathology of Parkinson’s disease is loss of dopaminergic innervation in the nigrostriatal pathway and spread to various regions in the brain This loss leads to two types of symptoms; motor and non-motor. Safinamide, a recently developed drug with several mechanisms of action has been investigated as an add-on therapy for Parkinson's disease patients suffering from motor complications due to the usage of anti-Parkinson's medications such as levodopa and dopaminergic drugs. The aim of the study is to investigate the efficacy and safety of Safinamide as add-on therapy for Parkinson's disease patients. Conclusions: In this study, we provide class I evidence about the potential role of safinamide as an add-on therapy for Parkinson's disease patients suffering from motor fluctuations. Future randomized controlled trials with different doses are recommended to provide more evidence for the efficacy and safety of safinamide as a treatment for motor complications of anti-Parkinson's medications
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
