Osteoarthritis associated with higher Parkinson's disease risk: Study
Taipei, Taiwan: Patients with osteoarthritis (OA) are at a increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease (PD), finds a recent study. The findings of the study ae published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.
Shin-Liang Pan, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, and colleagues aimed to investigate whether patients with osteoarthritis are at a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease.
For the purpose, the researchers conducted retrospective study using Taiwan's Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005 included 33,360 patients who were 50-64 years old and had osteoarthritis in 2002-2005. A comparison group consisted of 33,360 age- and sex- matched individuals without osteoarthritis.Their PD-free survival curves were generated using the Kaplan-Meier method.
Key findings of the study include:
- Of the two groups, the OA group had a significantly higher risk of developing PD (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR]=1.41).
- The PD-free survival rate of the OA group was also significantly lower than that of the comparison group.
- The subgroup analysis showed that patients with knee or hip OA appeared to have a higher magnitude of PD risk (aHR 1.55) than patients with non-knee and non-hip OA (aHR 1.42) or with uncategorized OA (aHR 1.32).
Although the mechanisms behind a potential link between osteoarthritis and Parkinson's disease are unknown, both conditions involve inflammation.
"Coexisting osteoarthritis and Parkinson's disease can additively increase the risk of falling. Moreover, osteoarthritis-related mobility impairments may mask early motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease," said senior author Shin-Liang Pan, MD, PhD, of National Taiwan University. "Health professionals need to be alert to the potential link between these two diseases."
Reference:
The study titled, "Osteoarthritis is associated with an increased risk of Parkinson's disease: A population-based, longitudinal follow-up study," is published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.
DOI: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acr.24708
