Drugs for Restless Legs Syndrome Have...(it looks like it's providing more benefi...),Health

Those side effects include nausea, dizziness, wheeziness, fatigue and transient headache, White said.

The dropout rate was greatest in trials of ropinerole, "which may be the drug that is causing the most profound side effects," he said.

On the positive side of the ledger, "it looks like they all had the same measure of efficacy" in relieving symptoms, at least over the short-term, White said.

"It would be tempting to go with pramipexole, at least for the short term," he said. "If you are concerned about safety, ropinerole had a higher rate of withdrawal."

Some head-to-head studies of the drugs are needed to determine which is the most effective and safest, and such studies should have a longer follow-up than past studies, the researchers said.

The American College of Neurology is now going over the data on controlled trials of the NEDA drugs and will publish guidelines on their use "by the end of the year," said Dr. William Endo, an associate professor of neurology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Endo, a member of the committee developing the guidelines, said the published studies show that these are definitely first-line treatments for restless legs syndrome. There is no doubt about it, he said. These are the only really major compounds that have gone through controlled trials. It is the quality of the studies, as much as the results, that supports them.

The dropout rate among people taking the drugs is about what could be expected of any drug therapy, Endo said.

More information

To learn more, visit the Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation.

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