Background: The Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UDPRS) is a commonly used tool to measure Parkinson disease (PD) progression. Longitudinal changes in MDS-UPDRS scores in de novo PD have not been established.
Objective: Determine progression rates of MDS-UPDRS scores in de novo PD.
Methods: 362 participants from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative, a multicenter longitudinal cohort study of de novo PD, were included. Longitudinal progression of MDS-UPDRS total and subscale scores were modeled using mixed model regression.
Results: MDS-UPDRS scores increased in a linear fashion over five years in de novo PD. MDS-UPDRS total score increased an estimated 4.0 points/year, Part I 0.25 points/year, Part II 1.0 points/year, and Part III 2.4 points/year.
Conclusions: The expected average progression of MDS-UPDRS scores in de novo PD from this study can assist in clinical monitoring and provide comparative data for detection of disease modification in treatment trials.
Keywords: MDS-UPDRS; Parkinson disease; biomarkers; disease progression.