RESUMO
Objective To observe the efficacy,safety and optimum dose of pramipexole in treating patients with essential tremor (ET).Methods Patients in line with diagnostic criteria of essential tremor (ET),collected in our hospital from May 2011 to December 2012,were chosen in our study.Registration and follow-up files were established and a five-week treatment with pramipexole was routinely given to these patients:week 1:0.25 mg/d (0.125 mg bid),week 2:0.375 mg/d (0.125 mg rid); week 3:0.5 mg/d(0.25 mg bid),and week 4:0.75 mg/d (0.25 mg tid); dose adjustment was based on the rating scale for ET of the National Institutes of Health of United States and the subjective feelings of the patients after treatment with pramipexole every week; all patients were required to increase the amount of pramipexole at week 2; if the effect was the same as before in referral at week 3 by increasing the amount of pramipexole,increasing the amount was not needed; otherwise,increasing the amount was continued until the tremor symptoms was no longer worsen.The amount of some patients could be increased to 1.5 mg/d (0.5 mg tid) at week 5.At week 6,the efficacy and dose of all patients were evaluated and recorded to analyzed the treatment efficacy and optimum dose; treatment emergent symptom scale (TESS) was employed to assess the side effects.Results Forty six patients completed the study; symptom relief was noted in 45 patients with a total efficacy rate reaching 97.83％.An obvious statistical difference existed in the differential daily dose of Pramipexole (x2=32.473,P=0.000); an obvious statistical difference existed between the dose of 1.5 mg/d (0.5 mg tid) and others doses (P＜0.05).The most common side effects were hallucination,dizziness and orthostatic hypotension,but disappeared with the drug reduction or withdrawal; no patient gave up treatment resulting from the side effect.Conclusion Pramipexole is highly effective and safe in the treatment of patients with ET; the suitable effective dose is 1.5 mg/d (0.5 mg tid); it can be used as the first-line treatment for ET.