meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Ropinirole Pharmacology

Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist

Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine

5716 Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ropinirole (Requip) is a dopamine agonist that can be used in Parkinson's disease and Restless Legs Syndrome.



Dopamine agonists like ropinirole can worsen psychiatric symptoms in some patients by causing hallucinations, and obsessive/compulsive symptoms.



Nausea, vomiting, hypotension, and fatigue are the most common adverse effects of ropinirole.



Ropinirole has drug interactions with antipsychotics and CYP1A2 inhibitors. I discuss these in greater detail in this podcast episode.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. I'm your host, pharmacist, Eric Christensen.

0:05.3

Thank you so much for listening today. Go check out RealLife Pharmacology.com. Get your free study guide on the top 200 drugs.

0:14.4

Simply in email, we'll get you access to that free resource. And obviously, we'll get you updates when we've got new podcasts available as well as other new

0:24.6

content.

0:25.3

So go check that out at real-life pharmacology.com.

0:30.5

All right, the drug of the day today is ropineral or brand name Requip.

0:37.3

This drug is classified as a dopamine agonist.

0:43.0

With that said, what dopamine receptors, from a mechanism of action standpoint, does

0:48.7

ripinerol bind? It primarily binds D3 receptors, but it also does have some binding to D2 receptors.

1:03.2

So if you remember mechanistically and from a drug class perspective, antipsychotics block dopamine 2 receptors.

1:14.4

And a drug like repineral actually activates or agonizes.

1:20.5

It stimulates the D2 receptor.

1:23.8

So these two drugs can really kind of cause opposing type effects.

1:30.1

So that's definitely an important thing to remember.

1:32.6

And if you can remember some of the adverse effects of antipsychotics, you can expect,

1:37.9

or what the antipsychotics treat, you can expectropineral to have some of the opposite type activity. And we'll get into that when I talk about

1:47.2

adverse effects, especially. All right, let's talk about indications. So first and foremost, this

1:56.9

drug was, I believe, initially created to manage Parkinson's symptoms.

2:02.5

Having that dopamine action, remember Parkinson's, it's a lack of dopamine action in the brain.

2:10.2

So it makes sense that ropeinerol could potentially be helpful for Parkinson's.

2:15.0

Now, with that, Carbidopal Leavidopa is really the gold standard for treatment of Parkinson's. Now, with that, Carbidopaliva is really the gold standard for treatment of Parkinson's,

2:20.4

so in my practice, I really don't see it used very often for Parkinson's disease. The other primary

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.