Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the association between bone mineral density (BMD) and disease severity, progression, freezing of gait (FOG), and fracture risk in de-novo Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients to assess the clinical benefits of early BMD screening.
Background: Patients with PD often exhibit reduced BMD, suggesting osteoporosis or osteopenia. However, the relationship between early BMD levels in de-novo PD patients and disease severity or prognosis remains unclear.
Method: We investigated 115 de-novo PD patients who underwent BMD measurements within one year of diagnosis. Disease severity was assessed using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) part 2/3 and Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) stage at diagnosis. To evaluate prognosis, we examined the time taken to reach H&Y stage 3, as well as the incidence of fractures and the development of Freezing of Gait (FOG) from the time of PD diagnosis.
Results: In de-novo PD patients, total femur BMD T-scores were negatively correlated with UPDRS3 scores (r = -0.233, p = 0.013) and H&Y stage (r = -0.190, p = 0.044), whereas spine BMD T-scores showed no significant correlation with disease severity.
However, Cox regression analysis revealed that BMD T-scores at diagnosis were not significantly associated with a faster progression to H&Y stage 3 (spine: p = 0.738; total femur: p = 0.389; femoral trochanter: p = 0.425; femoral neck: p = 0.301), nor with the development of FOG or the occurrence of fractures.
Conclusion: In this study, we found that the motor severity of PD correlates with lower BMD in the femur at early stage of the disease. However, BMD in de-novo PD patients was not correlated with motor progression, FOG and fracture. Measurement of BMD in de-novo PD patients might be clinically beneficial for the management of motor symptoms as well as osteoporosis.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
MG. Choi, SY. Jo, JY. Lee, SJ. Chung. Bone Mineral Density in Early Parkinson’s Disease: Correlations with Disease Severity and Prognosis [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2025; 40 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/bone-mineral-density-in-early-parkinsons-disease-correlations-with-disease-severity-and-prognosis/. Accessed October 5, 2025.« Back to 2025 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/bone-mineral-density-in-early-parkinsons-disease-correlations-with-disease-severity-and-prognosis/