Background and objective: Diplopia is relatively common in Parkinson's disease (PD) but is still understudied. Our aim was to analyze the frequency of diplopia in PD patients from a multicenter Spanish cohort, to compare the frequency with a control group, and to identify factors associated with it.
Patients and methods: PD patients who were recruited from January 2016 to November 2017 (baseline visit; V0) and evaluated again at a 2-year ± 30 days follow-up (V2) from 35 centers of Spain from the COPPADIS cohort were included in this longitudinal prospective study. The patients and controls were classified as "with diplopia" or "without diplopia" according to item 15 of the Non-Motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS) at V0, V1 (1-year ± 15 days), and V2 for the patients and at V0 and V2 for the controls.
Results: The frequency of diplopia in the PD patients was 13.6% (94/691) at V0 (1.9% in controls [4/206]; p < 0.0001), 14.2% (86/604) at V1, and 17.1% (86/502) at V2 (0.8% in controls [1/124]; p < 0.0001), with a period prevalence of 24.9% (120/481). Visual hallucinations at any visit from V0 to V2 (OR = 2.264; 95%CI, 1.269-4.039; p = 0.006), a higher score on the NMSS at V0 (OR = 1.009; 95%CI, 1.012-1.024; p = 0.015), and a greater increase from V0 to V2 on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-III (OR = 1.039; 95%CI, 1.023-1.083; p < 0.0001) and Neuropsychiatric Inventory (OR = 1.028; 95%CI, 1.001-1.057; p = 0.049) scores were independent factors associated with diplopia (R2 = 0.25; Hosmer and Lemeshow test, p = 0.716).
Conclusions: Diplopia represents a frequent symptom in PD patients and is associated with motor and non-motor severity.
Keywords: PIGD; Parkinson’s disease; Tremor; changes; motor; phenotype.