Safinamide: a new hope for Parkinson's disease?

• Autor(a) principal: Teixeira, Fábio Gabriel Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Gago, Miguel F., Marques, Paulo César Gonçalves, Moreira, Pedro Miguel Silva, Magalhães, Ricardo José Silva, Sousa, Nuno, Salgado, A. J.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/57888
• topic: Alanine; Animals; Antiparkinson Agents; Benzylamines; Humans; Levodopa; Neuroprotective Agents; Parkinson Disease; Science & Technology

The loss of dopaminergic neurons (DAn) and reduced dopamine (DA) production underlies the reasoning behind the gold standard treatment for Parkinson's disease (PD) using levodopa (L-DOPA). Recently licensed by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), safinamide [a monoamine oxidase B (MOA-B) inhibitor] is an alternative to L-DOPA; as we discuss here, it enhances dopaminergic transmission with decreased secondary effects compared with L-DOPA. In addition, nondopaminergic actions (neuroprotective effects) have been reported, with safinamide inhibiting glutamate release and sodium/calcium channels, reducing the excitotoxic input to dopaminergic neuronal death. Effects of safinamide have been correlated with the amelioration of non-motor symptoms (NMS), although these remain under discussion. Overall, safinamide can be considered to have potential antidyskinetic and neuroprotective effects and future trials and/or studies should be performed to provide further evidence for its potential as an anti-PD drug.