Posted by yxibow on August 25, 2008, at 2:43:26
In reply to first movement disorder drug approved by FDA ..., posted by Jeroen on August 22, 2008, at 3:35:38
> Xenazine also known as Tetrabenazine
> People with HD have overactive dopamine systems in their brains. Tetrabenazine reduces the amount of dopamine in the brain and subsequently reduces the abnormal movements or chorea in people with HD. The FDA granted orphan drug status to Xenazine.
>
>
> this wont cure the disorder but reduce the symptoms, but the question is at what cost??
>
Tetrabenazine has been investigated some time in the past by Baylor College under a granted license and has had some positive results in a small scale study.The risk though is TD itself, not impossible -- and can potentially cause unknown psychosis, but the main risk is that it can leave one with permanent or near permanent pseudoparkinsonism at the benefit of reduced movement disorders.
Its approved for Huntington's chorea, an orphan movement disorder with serious life threatening symptoms, and it is an orphan drug status in the US.
Tetrabenazine has been available as Nitoman before in Canada and the UK.
Some clinics in other places have tried Reserpine because it is more available but it runs a much higher risk of causing severe side effects.
Both of them are dopamine depleters, meaning harsher than dopamine agonists, they through a process I can't tell you because I don't understand the mechanism, basically deplete high levels of dopamine from the body itself. That is a very crude way of describing it, I'm sure someone knows more of how reserpine works. They both work through the VMAT system of metabolically reducing dopamine.Reserpine came from a natural source, an Indian plant called Rauwolfia and was primarily used as a antihypertensive. Supposedly according to an old TIME issue was even used by Gandhi as a tranquilizer.
It is still available in some places though not the UK, but it is much harsher than tetrabenazine. It is also used for Huntington's.
Its a serious compound, not to be used outside of neurology I would think, in general, and monitored fairly strictly because there haven't been huge scale trials of it.
I had thought about the compound in the past just in passing, but its something not taken lightly.
-- tidingsJay
poster:yxibow
thread:847653
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080822/msgs/848116.html