Incidence of Brain Vascular Damage in a Population With Parkinson's Disease: Statistical Comparison by Age Subassemblies With Age Homogeneous Control Groups.

Flora Zarola

doi:10.7759/cureus.8778

Abstract

We recently published studies on the incidence significance of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) in Parkinson's disease (PD) and some related movement disorders. The CVD was assessed by including lesions morphologically diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scan studies that defined ischemic vascular damage with a range from leukoaraiosis to multiple microinfarcts with various distribution, minor stroke, and major stroke and hemorrhagic lesions. These lesions were detected at the beginning of Parkinsonian symptoms or earlier; in any case, all the patients were diagnosed as PD patients according to the international classification and response to therapy. These studies have shown in a large age-range (40-96 years old) group of patients with PD that CVD was more severe and extensive if compared to a control population that is relatively homogeneous for age. Furthermore, carrying out the same comparison with other extrapyramidal diseases, such as essential tremor (ET), this statistical significance was still present while it was not when the investigation was performed between ET and the same control group. Therefore, we decided to deepen the study about the incidence of CVD in the different groups by adding a higher level, namely, considering different age subassemblies. We carried out this study because it is commonly assumed that CVD is a simple comorbidity in aged patients, so it was interesting to check if this pathology was present even in a younger age group.

Highlights

Recent studies about the statistical significance of the incidence of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) in Parkinson's disease (PD) pointed out the fact that CVD was not a simple comorbidity when compared to some related movement disorders or age homogeneous control populations [1,2,3,4,5]
In a large age-range group of patients with PD, we demonstrated that CVD was more severe and extensive if compared to a control population fairly homogeneous for age [1,2,3]
We carried out this study because it is commonly assumed that CVD is a simple comorbidity in aged patients, so we wanted to check if this pathology was present even in a younger age group or if the significance in the incidence of CVD was due to the statistical weight of older patients spread on the entire population

Summary

Introduction

Recent studies about the statistical significance of the incidence of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) in Parkinson's disease (PD) pointed out the fact that CVD was not a simple comorbidity when compared to some related movement disorders or age homogeneous control populations [1,2,3,4,5]. CVD was assessed by including lesions morphologically diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scan studies, which defined ischemic vascular damage with a range from leukoaraiosis to multiple microinfarcts with various distributions, minor stroke, major stroke, and hemorrhagic lesions. These lesions were detected at the beginning of Parkinsonian symptoms or earlier; in any case, all the patients were diagnosed as PD patients according to the international classification and response to therapy. We carried out this study because it is commonly assumed that CVD is a simple comorbidity in aged patients, so we wanted to check if this pathology was present even in a younger age group or if the significance in the incidence of CVD was due to the statistical weight of older patients spread on the entire population

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion