Apomorphine was the first dopaminergic
drug ever used to treat symptoms of
Parkinson's disease. While powerful antiparkinsonian effects had been observed as early as 1951, the potential of treating fluctuating
Parkinson's disease by subcutaneous administration of
apomorphine has only recently become the subject of systematic study. A number of small scale clinical trials have unequivocally shown that intermittent subcutaneous
apomorphine injections produce antiparkinsonian benefit close if not identical to that seen with
levodopa and that
apomorphine rescue
injections can reliably revert off-periods even in patients with complex on-off motor swings. Continuous subcutaneous
apomorphine infusions can reduce daily off-time by more than 50% in this group of patients, which appears to be a stronger effect than that generally seen with add-on
therapy with oral
dopamine agonists or COMT inhibitors. Extended follow-up studies of up to 8 years have demonstrated long-term persistence of
apomorphine efficacy. In addition, there is convincing clinical evidence that monotherapy with continuous subcutaneous
apomorphine infusions is associated with marked reductions of preexisting
levodopa-induced
dyskinesias. The main side effects of subcutaneous
apomorphine treatment are related to cutaneous tolerability problems, whereas sedation and psychiatric complications play a lesser role. Given the marked degree of efficacy of subcutaneous
apomorphine treatment in fluctuating
Parkinson's disease, this approach seems to deserve more widespread clinical use.