Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the clinical characteristics of Parkinson’s disease developed from essential tremor (ET-PD) with the clinical characteristics of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (IPD).

Background: Recent studies genetic and epidemiological studies have observed that there is a link between essential tremor and PD. However, there is lack of data about clinical features of PD developed from essential tremor.

Methods: Twenty-five ET-PD patients and 125 IPD controls were enrolled according to each criterion. Motor and nonmotor features were compared between the two groups.

Results: Rest and action tremors were more severe in ET-PD patients than in IPD patients. In addition, tremor disorder of first-degree relatives occurred more frequently in the ET-PD group than in the IPD group. Among the nonmotor features, frequencies of sleep disorders, especially rapid-eye-movement sleep behavioral disorder, were lower in patients with ET-PD than those with IPD, and smell identification test scores were higher in patients with ET-PD than those with IPD. The prevalence of other nonmotor symptoms did not differ between the two groups.

Conclusions: This is the first comparison of motor and nonmotor features between ET-PD and IPD. ET-PD and IPD have different characteristic motor and nonmotor features. This may suggest that ET can be a risk factor of PD in different way than previously believed.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/clinical-characteristics-of-parkinsons-disease-developed-from-essential-tremor/