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CONy 2022 | COMT inhibitors for motor fluctuations in Parkinson’s disease

Heinz Reichmann, MD, PhD, University of Dresden, Dresden, Germany, discusses his past research looking at catechol-o-methyl-transferase (COMT) inhibitors in Parkinson’s disease (PD). The first COMT inhibitor was entacapone, which is used worldwide. The next was tolcapone, but concerns regarding liver abnormalities limit its use. Opicapone is the newest COMT inhibitor, and it has the advantage that it only needs to be administered once a day, and leads to improvements in motor complications, especially of wearing-off. Moreover, motor fluctuations observed in both idiopathic PD syndrome and genetic-derived PD respond almost equally well to opicapone. Overall, inhibitors are good tools to counteract motor fluctuations. This interview was conducted during the 2022 World Congress on Controversies in Neurology (CONy) meeting.

Disclosures

Prof. Reichmann was acting on Advisory Boards and gave lectures and received research grants within the last 5 years from Bial, Desitin, Eisai, Kyowa-Kirin, Merz, Novartis, UCB Pharma, Zambon.