Treatment Improves Psychosis Symptoms Among Patients With Parkinson Disease

Patients with Parkinson disease (PD) who were treated with pimavanserin showed a significant improvement in psychosis symptoms, according to findings published in Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience.

Research shows up to 60% of patients with PD develop psychosis, which led study authors to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pimavanserin in treating PD psychosis.

Data was extracted from Google Scholar, PubMed, and abstracts from annual scientific sessions on randomized clinical trials that assessed pimavanserin’s effect on the treatment of PD psychosis. Researchers focused on dose, therapy duration, patient numbers, and study duration and analyzed the data with random effect modeling using the Mantel-Haenszel and inverse variance methods.

Data on 680 patients was provided from 4 studies comparing pimavenserin to a placebo. Of the 680 patients, 263 received placebo and 417 received pimavanserin.

“Treatment with pimavanserin was associated with a significant reduction in scores using the Scale of Assessment of Positive Symptoms, Hallucinations, and Delusion (SAPS-H+D) (mean difference [MD]: -1.55 [-2.71, -.379], P = .009),” wrote study authors.

Similar composite scores were also observed for Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale II and III (MD: 0.093 [-1.28, 1.46], P = .89).

Researchers also determined that pimavanserin was protective against orthostatic hypotension (risk ratio: .33 [.30, .37], P < .001). 

Reference:
Mansuri Z, Reddy A, Vadukapuram R, Trivedi C, Amara A. Pimavanserin in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease psychosis: meta-analysis and meta-regression of randomized clinical trials. Innov Clin Neurosci. Jan-Mar 2022;19(1-3):46-51. https://innovationscns.com/pimavanserin-treatment-parkinsons-disease-psychosis/