LCIG in treatment of non-motor symptoms in advanced Parkinson's disease: Review of literature.
BACKGROUND
For managing nonmotor symptoms (NMS) in advanced Parkinson's disease (PD), levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) infusion is of interest as it shows lesser plasma fluctuations of both drugs as compared to oral levodopa-carbidopa (LC).


OBJECTIVES
To highlight LCIG effect in NMS among advanced PD patients and appraise the currently available literature.


METHODS
PubMed screening (till 2020) of 184 articles was done, of which 51 were selected. Among them, 23 original articles relevant to the research question were included, of which 6 were then excluded after careful reading of full articles. The 17 relevant studies of the review provide Grade C level of evidence of efficacy.


RESULTS
LCIG is beneficial in improving or relieving various NMS especially (mood, cognition/memory, sleep, gastrointestinal symptoms, urinary symptoms, and quality of life questionnaires) in patients with advanced PD. Amelioration of motor functions or direct relations may lead to improvement in NMS PD patients using LCIG. Adverse events noted in patients treated with LCIG include pneumoperitoneum, abdominal pain, stoma infection, reversible peripheral neuropathy, local tube problems, impulse control disorder, and weight loss. Serious adverse events were mostly found to be unrelated to LCIG.


CONCLUSIONS
LCIG provides an uninterrupted intestinal levodopa infusion by percutaneous endoscopic gastrojejunostomy (PEG-J). It effectively decreases plasma fluctuations of levodopa and reduces motor instability and NMS burden in advanced PD. However, adequate dose modification and individualization of therapy are essential for optimal effect.
['Kamel|Walaa A|WA|0000-0002-3363-0370', 'Al-Hashel|Jasem Y|JY|']
D000978:Antiparkinson Agents D002230:Carbidopa D005782:Gels D006801:Humans D007980:Levodopa D010300:Parkinson Disease D011788:Quality of Life
Parkinson's disease nonmotor intestinal gel levodopa carbidopa