Transdermal Dopamine Agonist Ameliorates Gastric Emptying in Parkinson's Disease.

Hypothesis / aims of study Slow gastrointestinal (GI) transport can be attributed to peripheral myenteric plexus pathology in Parkinson’s disease (PD), where altered balance of cholinergic/ 5-HT4 serotonergic excitation and D2 dopaminergic inhibition might occur. This is further affected by ghrelin and other hormonal changes. It is recently reported that in PD patients, levodopa does not worsen gastric emptying (GE) or colonic transit time (CTT) while levodopa facilitates defecation. However, whether dopaminergic receptor agonist (DA) affects GI motility is not well known. To answer this question, we measured GE and CTT before and after DA administration in a single PD patients cohort.