Parkinson's disease and carotid intima-media thickness

Abstract

Reports about the impact of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) on clinical status in Parkinson's disease (PD) are rather controversial. There have been a few studies and inconsistent results regarding the coincidence of Parkinson's disease (PD) and atherosclerotic diseases, such as cerebrovascular disease. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) is a known marker for subclinical atherosclerosis.

Aim: This study was done to investigate the carotid IMT between PD patients and controls.

Material and methods: A total of 54 PD patients and 50 controls were examined. The duration of Parkinson's disease, the severity of Parkinson's disease (the Hoehn-Yahr stage) and carotid IMT were examined.

Results: The mean Hoehn and Yahr stage was 2.78 (range 2-4). Duration of disease had a mean of 7.59 +/- 0.85 years. The left CCA mean IMT was 0.900 +/- 0.147 in Parkinson group and 0.828 +/- 0.118 in control group (p = 0.007). The right CCA mean IMT was 0.891 +/- 0.176 mm in the Parkinson group and 0.860 +/- 0.164 in control group (p = 0.360). No relationship between the Hoehn and Yahr stages or the duration of PD with the IMT were found by the Pearson's correlation test.

Conclusions: The carotid IMT was higher in PD patients than in controls.