| 1. |
How easy is this STALEVO combination
tablet to use?
The STALEVO combination tablet is a combination of levodopa, carbidopa plus entacapone all in one.
In the past, patients had to take a levodopa, carbidopa tablet along with an entacapone tablet if that is how they were being treated, and here those two tablets are combined. So it makes it easier for patients because they only need to take one STALEVO tablet instead of two or more, and the STALEVO tablets are smaller than entacapone tablets alone. One of the nice things is that it helps keep patients from getting their tablets mixed up.
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| 2. |
How easy will it be to move from different formulations of levodopa to the combination tablet?
For most patients it will be easy. For patients who are on a combination of both entacapone plus levodopa, carbidopa, if there is an available corresponding STALEVO dose formulation, they can just switch to their corresponding dose. For patients who are on levodopa, carbidopa alone going to the triple combination tablets is analogous to adding entacapone. So all of the same sorts of things we think about in clinical practice would still apply.
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| 3. |
What is 'wearing off,' what causes 'wearing off'?
'Wearing off' is when patients notice a loss of clinical benefit over time, typically a few hours after taking their tablet. When patients first go on medication, particularly levodopa, they notice that it lasts from tablet to tablet, whether it is given three, four, five or even six hours between doses. After time though, patients begin to lose the capacity to convert levodopa to dopamine, and most importantly, store and slowly release it over time. So they become more and more dependent on a constant influx of levodopa from blood.
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