The effect of levodopa treatment on vascular endothelial function in Parkinson’s disease

Objective There has been increasing awareness that micro-vascular alteration or vascular inflammation has been associated with levodopa-induced dyskinesia in PD. Vascular endothelial function assessed by flow mediated dilation (FMD) is known to reflect early microvascular change. We compare the impact of levodopa or dopamine agonist treatment on the change of FMD in de novo PD patients. Methods This retrospective study used a selected sample from registry. We identified de-novo PD patients who underwent FMD at baseline, and follow-up FMD after 1 year (± 2 month) of levodopa ( n = 18) or dopamine agonist ( n = 18) treatment. Results FMD decreased after levodopa (8.60 ± 0.46 to 7.21 ± 0.4, p = 0.002) but there were no significant changes after DA treatment (8.33 ± 0.38 to 8.22 ± 0.33, p = 0.26). Homocysteine rose (11.52 ± 0.45 to 14.33 ± 0.68, p