Comparative study of clinical profile between familial and sporadic ParkinsonÂ’s disease -

The precise etiology of ParkinsonÂ’s disease (PD) is unknown and the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors may vary in different cases. So, the present study was conducted to compare clinical profile and medication dose in familial and sporadic PD. The patients in the present study were recruited from Movement disorders clinic of tertiary care centre after taking approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee and written informed consent from all patients. All patients underwent a detailed clinical examination and age of onset (in years), duration of motor symptom (in years), clinical subtype of PD (tremor vs bradykinesia dominant vs mixed), comorbid illness (diabetes, hypertension), L-dopa equivalent dose, individual PD medications with doses and other medications were noted. Modified Hoehn and Yahr staging was done in both the groups. Mean age of onset of disease was less than 50 years in both the groups. Majority of patients (85%) in both groups had tremor dominant PD. L-dopa dose for both the PD was found effective and there was non-significant difference in their doses. There was no significant difference in the demographic features, clinical characteristics and medication doses between familial and sporadic PD patients. To conclude, there was no significant difference between both the groups for clinical profile and medication used. This may be due the fact that frequency of genetic mutations in PD shows significant variation based on ethnicity which was not found in this Indian study.