Prodromal Parkinson's disease as defined per MDS research criteria in the general elderly community

Background: Recently, the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society has defined research criteria for prodromal Parkinson's disease (PD), but to date their predictive value has not yet been tested in population-based cohorts.

Methods: We retrospectively applied these criteria to the longitudinal Bruneck Study cohort aged 55-94 years using recorded data on all included risk and prodromal markers that are quick and easily assessable.

Results: After excluding participants with idiopathic PD or secondary parkinsonism, prevalence of probable prodromal PD in the remaining 539 participants was 2.2% (95% confidence interval, 1.2%-3.9%). Of 488 participants followed up over 5 years, 11 developed incident PD. Sensitivity of "probable prodromal PD" status for incident PD was 54.6% (95% confidence interval, 28.0%-78.8%), specificity was 99.2% (97.8%-99.8%), positive predictive value was 60.0% (31.2%-83.3%), and negative predictive value was 99.0% (97.5%-99.6%).

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the new research criteria for prodromal PD are a promising tool to identify cases of incident PD over 5 years, arguing for their usefulness in defining target populations for disease-prevention trials. © 2016 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.