scholarly journals High Prevalence of Early Parkinson's Disease in Patients With Subtle Parkinsonian Signs

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoichi Sasaki

Background: Little is known about how frequently patients with a Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale part III (UPDRS-III) score of 3 or 4, including postural and action tremor, could be classified into early Parkinson's disease (PD).Objective: To examine the prevalence of early PD in patients with subtle parkinsonian signs (rest tremor, postural tremor, and rigidity) without bradykinesia, having a UPDRS-III score of 3 or 4.Methods: Parkinsonism was assessed using UPDRS-III based on both the United Kingdom PD Society Brain Bank criteria and the Movement Disorder Society PD criteria. Ninety patients with a UPDRS-III score of 3 or 4, including postural tremor, were evaluated by 123I-FP-CIT SPECT (DaTscan), brain MRI, the Mini-Mental State Examination, and smell test. Some patients were additionally examined by 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine myocardial scintigraphy or 123I-N-isopropyl-p-iodoamphetamine SPECT.Results: Seventy-five [mean age (standard deviation): 76.9 (8.1)] out of 90 patients (83.3%) showed abnormal findings on DaTscan imaging: 57 out of 75 (76.0%) showed a reduced specific binding ratio (SBR) accompanied by an egg shape pattern (n = 37, 49.3%) or a mixed type pattern (n = 14, 18.7%), both reduced SBR and increased asymmetry index (AI) with a normal shape (n = 4, 5.3%), and reduced SBR only (n = 2, 2.7%); 18 (24.0%) showed an egg shape pattern or a mixed type pattern without reduced SBR. In other words, 69 out of 75 patients (92.0%) showed either an egg shape or a mixed type pattern with or without reduced SBR. All patients were free of dementia, and their olfactory function was significantly impaired compared with controls (n = 141) on the odor-stick identification test for Japanese (p < 0.0001).Conclusions: The prevalence of patients with subtle parkinsonian signs having a UPDRS-III score of 3 or 4, including postural tremor, is unexpectedly high in daily clinical practice, and most of these patients could be categorized into mild early-stage PD.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhijeet K. Kohat ◽  
Samuel Y. E. Ng ◽  
Aidan S. Y. Wong ◽  
Nicole S. Y. Chia ◽  
Xinyi Choi ◽  
...  

Background: Various classifications have been proposed to subtype Parkinson's disease (PD) based on their motor phenotypes. However, the stability of these subtypes has not been properly evaluated.Objective: The goal of this study was to understand the distribution of PD motor subtypes, their stability over time, and baseline factors that predicted subtype stability.Methods: Participants (n = 170) from two prospective cohorts were included: the Early PD Longitudinal Singapore (PALS) study and the National Neuroscience Institute Movement Disorders Database. Early PD patients were classified into tremor-dominant (TD), postural instability and gait difficulty (PIGD), and indeterminate subtypes according to the Movement Disorder Society's Unified PD Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) criteria and clinically evaluated for three consecutive years.Results: At baseline, 60.6% patients were TD, 12.4% patients were indeterminate, and 27.1% patients were PIGD subtypes (p < 0.05). After 3 years, only 62% of patients in TD and 50% of patients in PIGD subtypes remained stable. The mean levodopa equivalent daily dose (LEDD) was higher in the PIGD subtype (276.92 ± 232.91 mg; p = 0.01). Lower LEDD [p < 0.05, odds ratio (OR) 0.99, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.98–0.99] and higher TD/PIGD ratios (p < 0.05, OR 1.77, 95% CI: 1.29–2.43) were independent predictors of stability of TD subtype with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.787 (95%CI: 0.669–0.876), sensitivity = 57.8%, and specificity = 89.7%.Conclusion: Only 50–62% of PD motor subtypes as defined by MDS-UPDRS remained stable over 3 years. TD/PIGD ratio and baseline LEDD were independent predictors for TD subtype stability over 3 years.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caspian M. Sawczak ◽  
Alexander J. Barnett ◽  
Melanie Cohn

Hallucinations are common in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Based on functional brain MRI data, hallucinations are proposed to result from alterations in the dorsal attention network (DAN), ventral attention network (VAN), and default mode network. Using structural MRI data from Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), we examined cortical thickness in these networks in PD patients with (n=30) and without (n=30) minor hallucinations who were matched on multiple clinical characteristics (e.g., age, sex, education, cognitive diagnosis, MoCA score, medication, disease duration, and severity) as well as healthy controls (n=30) matched on demographic variables. Multivariate analyses revealed mild hallucinations to be associated with thicker cortex in the DAN and VAN, and these effects were driven by the left superior precentral sulcus and postcentral sulcus for the DAN and by the right insular gyrus for the VAN. While these findings may seem at odds with prior work showing grey matter reductions, our patients are in earlier stages of the disease than those in other studies. This is consistent with an inverted U-shape pattern of cortical thickness alterations in other neurodegenerative diseases and warrants further investigations in longitudinal studies tracking brain correlates of PD psychosis progression.


2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Kulisevsky ◽  
Ramón Fernández de Bobadilla ◽  
Javier Pagonabarraga

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e040527
Author(s):  
Julia C Greenland ◽  
Emma Cutting ◽  
Sonakshi Kadyan ◽  
Simon Bond ◽  
Anita Chhabra ◽  
...  

IntroductionThe immune system is implicated in the aetiology and progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Inflammation and immune activation occur both in the brain and in the periphery, and a proinflammatory cytokine profile is associated with more rapid clinical progression. Furthermore, the risk of developing PD is related to genetic variation in immune-related genes and reduced by the use of immunosuppressant medication. We are therefore conducting a ‘proof of concept’ trial of azathioprine, an immunosuppressant medication, to investigate whether suppressing the peripheral immune system has a disease-modifying effect in PD.Methods and analysisAZA-PD is a phase II randomised placebo-controlled double-blind trial in early PD. Sixty participants, with clinical markers indicating an elevated risk of disease progression and no inflammatory or immune comorbidity, will be treated (azathioprine:placebo, 1:1) for 12 months, with a further 6-month follow-up. The primary outcome is the change in the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale gait/axial score in the OFF state over the 12-month treatment period. Exploratory outcomes include additional measures of motor and cognitive function, non-motor symptoms and quality of life. In addition, peripheral and central immune markers will be investigated through analysis of blood, cerebrospinal fluid and PK-11195 positron emission tomography imaging.Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the London-Westminster research ethics committee (reference 19/LO/1705) and has been accepted by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for a clinical trials authorisation (reference CTA 12854/0248/001–0001). In addition, approval has been granted from the Administration of Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee. The results of this trial will be disseminated through publication in scientific journals and presentation at national and international conferences, and a lay summary will be available on our website.Trial registration numbersISRCTN14616801 and EudraCT- 2018-003089-14.


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