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news.Boehringer Ingelheim's Mirapex, a drug candidate indicated for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, has been found to provide similar improvement of depressive symptoms in Parkinson's disease sufferers to sertraline, an established antidepressant.
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The study, which did not include a placebo arm, found that after 12 weeks of treatment, patients in both the Mirapex- and sertraline-treated groups achieved a significant improvement in symptoms of depression.
However, 69.7% of patients on Mirapex (pramipexole dihydrochloride) responded to therapy (as defined by at least a 50% reduction in HAMD total score) compared with 48.5% of patients who responded to sertraline therapy.
In addition to providing symptom improvement, Mirapex proved to be safe and well tolerated in this study. Fewer patients taking Mirapex (9.1%) reported at least one adverse event compared with those on sertraline (24.2%).
While no Mirapex-treated patients withdrew from the study due to adverse events, five patients being treated with sertraline did.
Up to 50% of people with Parkinson’s disease are estimated to experience some form of depression, yet depression is often overlooked and under-treated, in part because many symptoms of depression overlap with the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.