Objective: To estimate the proportion of cases of early-onset Parkinson’s disease(EOPD).

Background: Compared with patients with late-onset Parkinson’s disease, most patients with EOPD develop motor fluctuations and dyskinesias earlier. Because of the early onset, these patients tend to experience a greater effect in their lives than patients with a late onset, with weak professional, social, and everyday functions, higher levels of depression, and a lower quality of life. Thus, early diagnosis, treatment and psychological support are of paramount importance. However, we have no data on the proportion of EOPD cases among patients with PD.

Method: A database search was conducted using Medline (PubMed), EMBASE and Google Scholar to identify published studies. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with EOPD. This was calculated as the number of patients with EOPD divided by the total number of PD cases. We then performed a meta-analysis of proportions using the random effects method and presented a pooled estimate with 95% CI.

Results: Forty six studies were included in our analysis. There were 17,370 PD patients and 739 EOPD patients. After performing meta-analysis, the pooled proportion of EOPD was found to be 3.8 % [95% CI: 0.03-0.046, I2 = 91.37 %]. Among the individual studies, it ranged from 0.3 % to 16.3 %. The pooled proportion of EOPD was 3 % [95% CI: 0.019-0.049, I2 = 95.17 %] in studies conducted in Australia, North America and Europe and 4.8 % [95% CI: 0.034-0.069, I2 = 80.66 %] in studies conducted in other parts of the world. The proportion was 3.3 % [95% CI: 0.022-0.051, I2 = 83.12 %] in studies that defined EOPD as onset before age of 40 years, compared with 4.3 % [95% CI: 0.028-0.066, I2 = 94.96 %] in studies that defined EOPD as onset before age of 50 years. The proportion was 3 % [95% CI: 0.017-0.048, I2 = 0 %] in studies that recruited PD patients by door to door survey or random selection, compared with 4 % [95% CI: 0.029-0.056, I2 = 94 %] in studies that recruited PD patients through health record review.

Conclusion: Our study showed that the proportion of EOPD in PD is 3.8%.  Special attention should be paid to young patients suffering from involuntary movement disorders, to make sure that we did not miss the diagnosis of EOPD.

« Back to 2019 International Congress

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-proportion-of-patients-with-early-onset-parkinsons-disease-a-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis/