The catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitor entacapone is given in combination 
with levodopa/dopa decarboxylase inhibitor for Parkinson's disease (PD) patients 
experiencing end-of-dose wearing-off. This 4-week post-marketing surveillance 
study was undertaken to assess patients' responses to levodopa combined with 
entacapone in a real clinical practice setting. Overall, 466 patients with 
idiopathic PD treated with levodopa and experiencing symptoms of wearing-off 
were recruited. Both physicians and patients recorded the response to therapy, 
including improvements and side-effects. Following initiation of entacapone 
treatment, the average daily levodopa dose was reduced from 510 to 453 mg. 
Physician assessment of entacapone efficacy was judged to be "very good" or 
"good" in 77.6% of the patients, and tolerability was considered to be "very 
good" or "good" in 92.4% of patients, with only 12 patients (2.6%) withdrawing 
from the study. Compared with baseline, there was a decrease in the mean 
duration of daily 'off' time from 3.0 to 1.3 h per day during the treatment 
period. Adverse events were in line with those previously reported, with 
diarrhoea being the most frequent event. The percentage of patients suffering 
from dyskinesia decreased from 46 to 34%, and of those patients still suffering 
from dyskinesia, the average daily duration of dyskinesia was reduced from 2.2 
to 1.7 h. The use of adjunct dopamine agonists decreased from 67 to 59%. At 
study end, the percentage of patients who rated their quality of life (QoL) as 
"very good" or "good" increased from 12.1 to 51.7% and the percentage of 
patients who rated their QoL as "bad" or "very bad" decreased from 40 to 10.7%. 
In summary, the results of this survey conducted in real clinical practice 
support the findings of previous clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy and 
tolerability of entacapone, as well as the benefits of improved QoL, for 
patients achieved with entacapone.