Rotigotine may control drooling in patients with Parkinson's Disease: Preliminary findings.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of rotigotine in controlling the drooling of Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We assessed 7 PD patients (Hoehn and Yahr scale >2.5) with three different clinical scores (Drooling Severity and Frequency Scale - DSFS, Drooling Rating Scale - DRS and Sialorrhea Clinical Scale for PD - SCS) before and after 4 weeks of therapy. Statistical differences were analyzed with Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

RESULTS: We observed that rotigotine significantly improves drooling as measured by the lowering of the three scores (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Among non-motor symptoms of PD, drooling is one of the most embarrassing and disabling for patients. Current treatments are unsatisfactory and novel approaches are thus desirable. In this open-label pilot study we demonstrated on a small sample of patients that up to 4mg/24h of rotigotine, a non-ergolinic dopamine agonist with continuous transdermal delivery, may be helpful in the management of drooling in advanced PD.