What group of Parkinson's disease patients are infusion therapies for?
As for the drug program, infusion therapies are reserved for patients with the so-called advanced form of the disease. Although a more appropriate name is complex Parkinson's disease, because the word advanced connotes a late form of the disease and the advanced age of the patient. And we also have young patients, in their forties or fifties, who already have complex, that is, a form of the disease with movement disorders, complications of dopaminergic therapy and extra-motor symptoms like memory disorders or autonomic symptoms (urinary disturbances, drops in blood pressure, etc.).
The B.90 program is fully funded by the National Health Service and has two infusion therapies. One is apomorphine therapy. This is one of the dopamine agonists. The other therapy is the so-called gold standard, which is levodopa.
What are the criteria for inclusion in the program? Do they need to be changed?
The program in Poland is now in its fifth year. We have more than a dozen centers providing this therapy. I work in one of the first centers that started providing this therapy. The program has evolved over time. In the beginning, the eligibility criteria were indeed very restrictive. One of the conditions was disqualification for treatment with deep brain stimulation (the third formula for treating the advanced form of the disease). Happily, it was also possible to dispense with the criterion of having an MRI scan of the head within 12 ...
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