WEDNESDAY, March 6 (HealthDay News) -- In patients with restless legs syndrome, dopamine agonists and calcium channel alpha-2-delta ligands are effective in reducing symptoms and improving sleep and quality of life, although adverse events are common and often lead to treatment withdrawals, according to a review published online March 4 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Timothy J. Wilt, M.D., M.P.H., from the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, and colleagues performed a meta-analysis of 29 randomized controlled trials examining pharmacologic treatments of at least four weeks for primary restless legs syndrome.
The researchers found that, compared with placebo, more patients treated with dopamine agonists had a clinically important response (61 versus 41 percent; risk ratio, 1.60). Dopamine agonists also improved sleep scores and measures of quality of life. Compared with placebo, more patients treated with calcium channel alpha-2-delta ligands also had a clinically important response (61 versus 37 percent; risk ratio, 1.66). Adverse events were common and included nausea, vomiting, and somnolence with dopamine agonists and somnolence and unsteadiness or dizziness with alpha-2-delta ligands.
"On the basis of short-term randomized controlled trials that enrolled highly selected populations with long-term high-moderate to very severe symptoms, dopamine agonists and calcium channel alpha-2-delta ligands reduced restless legs syndrome symptoms and improved sleep outcomes and disease-specific quality of life," Wilt and colleagues conclude.
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