The Efficacy of Safinamide in the Management of Parkinson's Disease: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that is challenging to treat due to its progressive nature and its weaning response to therapy. Safinamide, a monoamine oxidase type-B inhibitor (MAOB-I), has shown promise in managing dyskinesias caused by levodopa (L-dopa), carbidopa, and PD features such as pain and depression. This systematic review aimed to evaluate safinamide's efficacy as a monotherapy and an add-on in tackling these issues. We composed this systematic review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Our group searched the following databases: Manchester University Library, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, PubMed, PubMed Central, and MedLine for articles produced in the last ten years using various search terms and criteria, which we outlined in the search strategy and eligibility criteria sections. We excluded 722 out of the initially screened 730 records for multiple reasons, such as titles and abstracts being irrelevant to the topic, articles without free full access, articles originally not in the English language, and articles that did not score 70% or above on their respective quality assessment tools. The studies explored supported safinamide's use in managing motor fluctuations, pain, depression, and improving patients' quality of life.

Keywords: motor fluctuations; parkinson's disease non-motor symptoms; parkinson's disease treatment; parkinson’s disease (pd); safinamide.

Figure 1. PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for new systematic reviews depicting the study selection process

PRISMA - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses