Parkinson’s Disease incidents are much higher than previously expected – according to new study

This past Thursday, December 14th 2022, a New Study showcasing the rise in over 30,000 more cases of PD than previously expected… The study was released by Allison Willis at Penn Medicine – The University of Pennsylvania Health System. The information in this article is sourced directly from that article in short.

Initial Findings

“Disease frequency in a given population can be measured as the annual prevalence (proportion of persons currently diagnosed with the disease) or incidence (proportion of persons newly diagnosed with the disease). Recently, we performed meta estimates of the 2010 prevalence of PD in North America, using multinational data from current and past epidemiology projects4. Our primary finding was that the overall prevalence of Parkinson disease among persons ages 45 and older was 572/100,000. We also found that PD burden in the population at ages 65 and above was higher than typically reported. These improved prevalence estimates and economic burden projections are but some of the vital statistics for population health. Prevalence is influenced not only by new cases appearing in the population but also by the survival of established cases. Incidence is an important complementary statistic in that it is a more direct reflection of the impact of risk factors for a disease (in the absence of changes in diagnostic efficiency). Improved estimates of disease incidence and mortality are also necessary for understanding disease risk, planning healthcare capacity, delivery, anticipating and addressing care disparities, and identifying unwarranted variations in care delivery.

Prior work has described the incidence of PD in limited populations such as isolated groups, cities, or lower population countries5,6,7,8,9,10. However, PD incidence data that are multinational or derived from multiple sources are not well documented. Health care systems, clinical registries, and clinical cohorts have the capability to detect and report PD burden. Although each data source contains varying degrees of patient representativeness, sensitivity, and specificity, the heterogeneity of the data underscores the need for disease burden estimates to include data from multiple patient sources. Therefore, building upon our efforts for improved estimates of PD prevalence, our group examined PD incidence across multiple regional cohorts and national datasets to generate an improved estimate of the incidence of Parkinson disease among older adults in North America. By aggregation of the available data, age and sex-stratified PD incidence estimates were derived. Additionally, the spatial clustering of Parkinson disease risk was explored.”

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Conclusion

The results of this study are displayed in a sex related and geographic related report that showcases that men receive a diagnosis for PD more often than women do.

For more information related to the results as well as the discussion that took place..Please Check out the Article Here

Citation

Willis, A.W., Roberts, E., Beck, J.C. et al. Incidence of Parkinson disease in North America. npj Parkinson’s Dis. 8, 170 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-022-00410-y