Estrogen treatment of dyskinetic disorders

Abstract

Estrogen have been reported in animal studies to both enhance and block central dopaminergic activity and in one clinical report to improve tardive dyskinesia. In the present study estrogen (Premarin, 2.5 mg per day) administration caused varying degrees of improvement in less than one-third of 21 patients with chorea due to Huntington's disease and tardive dyskinesia and had no effect in eight patients with dystonia. Estrogens appear to have an antidopaminergic effect in humans but poses only limited efficacy in the treatment of dyskinetic disorders.