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STUDY: Parkinson's Starts Years Before Symptoms Findings Could Someday Help Doctors Prevent the Brain Disorder By Charlene Laino WebMD Medical Reference Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD on Tuesday, May 04, 2004 May 4, 2004 (San Francisco) -- If new research pans out in future trials, doctors may someday be able to predict who will develop Parkinson's disease more than a decade before symptoms appear. More importantly, once drugs that can ward off the Parkinson's are developed, it may be possible to prevent the brain disorder marked by tremors, muscle stiffness, and trouble with balance and coordination, reports G. Webster Ross, MD, staff neurologist at the Honolulu Department of Veterans Affairs in Hawaii. "The important thing is that there is a long period of time during which people are destined to develop Parkinson's disease, with gradual loss of cells going on in the brain, but they don't know it," he says. "There are no signs or symptoms." "If we could identify these people and have an intervention that slows or prevents the brain cell loss, we could actually prevent the disease," Ross tells WebMD. 13 Years Earlier Reporting at the American Academy of Neurology 56th Annual Meeting, Ross says his study showed that the loss of brain cells that leads to Parkinson's disease starts an estimated 13 years before the diagnosis. For the study, Ross and colleagues examined the brains of 13 deceased men who had Parkinson's disease and those of 175 men who died at similar ages but did not have the disorder. The researchers counted the number of brain cells in the section of the brain affected in Parkinson's -- an area known as the substantia nigra. The average number of cells was significantly lower in the men with Parkinson's than in the other men. Also, the longer the men had had Parkinson's disease, the lower their brain cell count, Ross says. By using sophisticated statistical methods that graphed brain cell loss over time, the researchers then estimated that at the time of diagnosis, the men with Parkinson's disease had, on average, 40% fewer brain cells in the substantia nigra than those without Parkinson's disease, he says. With further analysis, the researchers estimated that the loss of brain cells starts about 13 years prior to the diagnosis of the disease. More Study Needed Philip Su, MD, clinical associate professor of neurology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, says he was impressed with the study. "Before we really had no long-term studies; now we do," he says. "It helps clinicians to know that the disease is progressive and to know about how long a time period goes by between the start of nerve cell loss and actual symptoms." But Stanley Fahn, MD, H. Houston Merritt professor of neurology at Columbia University in New York City and immediate past president of the American Academy of Neurology, tells WebMD that while interesting, further study is needed. Ross agrees, stressing that the findings are still preliminary. The next step, he says, will be to go back and try to replicate the findings in larger numbers of people. Additionally, in order to track brain cell loss over time in people who are alive, better methods of imaging the brain are still needed, Ross says. "We have some special scans but we're still trying to refine them," he tells WebMD. SOURCE: WebMD - May 4, 2004 http://tinyurl.com/2e3k6 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn