Levamlodipine is an effective switch-over option for the elderly patients who experience oedema and other adverse events with racemic amlodipine. Safety and tolerability
The use of racemic amlodipine is commonly associated with adverse events like peripheral edema and other side effects like headache, dizziness, flushing and abdominal pain. Controlled clinical trials showed that levamlodipine is rarely associated with these side effects. No controlled clinical study of levamlodipine has been performed in patients with hepatic impairment and renal impairment. Clinical studies in patients with normal liver function have shown that there is no elevation in the hepatic enzymes with the use of levamlodipine. However, caution should be taken while administering levamlodipine to such patients. In a postmarketing surveillance study, levamlodipine (2.5/5 mg) was found to be well tolerated (n = 1859)  in patients with hypertension. Out of 314 patients, who reported peripheral edema with conventional amlodipine were switched over to levamlodipine and edema was resolved in 310 patients (98.72%) at the end of 4 weeks. Only in 4 patients was edema sustained. Only 30 patients (out of 1859) reported side effects. These side effects included vertigo, tachycardia, cough, headache, fever, mild difficulty in breathing and edema. Adverse events were mild in nature and no serious adverse events were reported. == References ==
Removing cerebrospinal fluid at regular 3- to 7-day intervals is the only proven method of significantly reducing intracranial pressure and can be used for symptomatic treatment of headaches. This process may be repeated until improvement is shown. There is growing evidence of moderate quality that suggests corticosteroid therapy using prednisolone or dexamethasone has beneficial effect in treating the CNS symptoms related to A. cantonensis infections. Although early research did not show treatment with antihelminthic agents (parasite-killing drugs) such as thiobendazole or albendazole effective in improving the clinical course of the illness, a number of recent studies from Thailand and China show that the combination of glucocorticoids and antihelminthics is safe and decreases the duration of headaches and the number of patients who had significant headache. Although the addition of antihelminthic agents for management of A. cantonensis infection has a theoretic risk of precipitating a neurologic crisis by releasing an overwhelming load of antigens through simultaneous death of the larvae, no study has shown this to exist in the clinical setting. Additionally, the failure to kill parasites before they attempt to migrate out of the CNS increases the risk of mechanical damage by migrating larvae. Although combination therapy using albendazole and prednisolone has no significant advantage compared to treatment using prednisolone alone in mild cases, the treatment with antihelminthics is demonstrably safe and may have significant benefit for patients with high parasite loads at risk for permanent disability or death.