Long-term safety and efficacy of adjunctive rasagiline in levodopa-treated Japanese patients with Parkinson’s disease

Rasagiline is a monoamine oxidase type-B inhibitor in development in Japan for Parkinson’s disease (PD). This open-label study evaluated the long-term safety and efficacy of rasagiline in Japanese patients with PD receiving levodopa. Patients were aged 30–79 years and had wearing-off or weakened effect. Patients received rasagiline 1 mg/day for 52 weeks. The primary objective was to evaluate safety. Secondary endpoints included MDS-UPDRS Part II and Part III total scores (ON-state) and change from baseline in mean daily OFF-time. An additional endpoint was the Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire-39 (PDQ-39) Summary Index (SI) score. In total, 222 patients were enrolled; 52.3% had wearing-off phenomena. Treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were mostly mild or moderate and occurred in 83.3% of patients; 63.1% had drug-related TEAEs; and 21.2% had TEAEs resulting in discontinuation. Fall (16.7%), nasopharyngitis (14.0%), and dyskinesia (10.8%) were the most frequent TEAEs. Serious TEAEs were reported in 17.6% of patients, and led to discontinuation in 9.5%. At week 52 (last-observation-carried forward), the mean change from baseline in MDS-UPDRS Part III total score (ON-state) was − 7.6; the mean change from baseline in daily OFF-time was − 0.89 h in patients with wearing-off phenomena at the start of the run-in period. The mean change from baseline in PDQ-39 SI was − 0.64. No major safety issues were observed during this 52-week trial of rasagiline as an adjunct to levodopa in Japanese patients. Mean changes in MDS-UPDRS scores and daily OFF-time suggested that adjunctive rasagiline treatment with levodopa was efficacious, with efficacy maintained for at least 52 weeks.