Credit score: Unsplash/CC0 Public Area
A brand new examine by the College of Turku and Turku College Hospital, Finland, discovered {that a} important proportion of Parkinson’s illness diagnoses are later corrected. As much as one in six diagnoses modified after 10 years of follow-up, and nearly all of new diagnoses had been made inside two years of the unique prognosis.
A examine printed in Neurology reveals important diagnostic instability in Parkinson’s illness, with 13.3% of diagnoses revised over a 10-year follow-up interval. When dementia with Lewy our bodies (DLB) is handled as a separate diagnostic class, the revision price will increase to 17.7%.
The big-scale examine adopted over 1,600 sufferers initially identified with Parkinson’s illness. The outcomes display the continuing problem of distinguishing it from different comparable problems, regardless of enhancements in diagnostics.
“Notably, a majority of these diagnostic changes occur within the first two years of diagnosis, which emphasizes the challenges and uncertainty clinicians face in diagnosing Parkinson’s disease accurately,” explains Valtteri Kaasinen, Professor of Neurology on the College of Turku and principal investigator of the examine.
Medical practices and diagnostic challenges improve misdiagnoses
Generally revised diagnoses embody vascular parkinsonism, progressive supranuclear palsy, a number of system atrophy, and clinically undetermined parkinsonism.
Whereas dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging was regularly used to help in prognosis, the examine discovered that postmortem neuropathological examinations had been solely performed in 3% of deceased sufferers, with 64% of those confirming the preliminary Parkinson’s illness diagnoses. This decline in postmortem examinations mirrors a worldwide pattern seen in different research.
The examine additionally highlights the problem in differentiating between Parkinson’s illness and dementia with Lewy our bodies, notably in relation to the controversial “one-year rule.”
“This rule, which considers the temporal sequence of motor and cognitive symptoms, resulted in more latter cases identified compared to the original clinical diagnoses. While the one-year rule is used in clinical practice, its relevance may be limited by the overlap between these disorders, with substantial group-level differences but minimal distinctions at the individual level,” says Kaasinen.
Pressing want for improved diagnostic processes
“The key conclusions of our study are the urgent need for ongoing refinement of diagnostic processes, enhanced clinical training for neurologists, more frequent use of postmortem diagnostic confirmation, and the development of widely accessible, cost-effective biomarkers,” Kaasinen summarizes.
Rising the speed of autopsies would improve clinicians’ understanding of diagnostic accuracy, notably in circumstances the place preliminary diagnoses are unclear or revised. The event of cost-effective and accessible biomarkers might enhance diagnostic precision, notably in non-specialized settings, in the end main to raised affected person care.
This retrospective examine was performed at Turku College Hospital and three regional hospitals in Finland, analyzing affected person data from 2006 to 2020. The examine aimed to guage the long-term diagnostic stability of Parkinson’s illness and assess the accuracy of preliminary diagnoses over time in a big cohort of sufferers identified by neurologists, with or with out specialization in motion problems.
Extra data:
Valtteri Räty et al, Stability and Accuracy of a Analysis of Parkinson Illness Over 10 Years, Neurology (2025). DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000213499
Supplied by
College of Turku
Quotation:
Diagnostic uncertainty in Parkinson’s illness: New examine requires improved diagnostic processes (2025, April 7)
retrieved 7 April 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-04-diagnostic-uncertainty-parkinson-disease.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any truthful dealing for the aim of personal examine or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is offered for data functions solely.
