Objective: The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the proportion of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients in Movement Disorder Centers with Advanced Parkinson’s Disease (APD) as per physician’s judgement. Further, the key secondary objective was to compare the characteristics of APD versus non-APD patients.

Background: Identification of APD is complex due to lack of standardized criteria, impeding assessment of ongoing care and treatment strategies. The international OBSERVE-PD study evaluated identification and clinical features of APD versus non-APD patients in 2615 patients enrolled across 18 countries. In Belgium, 167 patients from 8 centers were

included.

Method: Identification of APD was evaluated by estimating the level of agreement between physician’s global assessment versus Delphi criteria. Patient characteristics were descriptively compared between APD and non-APD patients. Clinical endpoints such as motor and non-motor symptoms, activities of daily living and quality of life were quantitatively assessed and statistically compared between the two groups. Descriptive comparisons were performed between the Belgian and the international cohort.

Results: In Belgium, 46.1% of patients had APD according to physician’s judgment. There was only a “fair agreement” between physician’s judgment and Delphi criteria, illustrated by a

kappa value of 0.389 (95% confidence interval 0.279–0.499), slightly below the one reported in the international cohort. Basic characteristics for both APD and non-APD patients in Belgium are presented in table 1. Compared to non-APD, APD patients scored significantly worse on activities of daily living, motor symptom severity, dyskinesia duration/disability, “Off” time duration and quality-of-life scores (p < 0.001 for all). Amongst APD patients eligible for Device-Aided Treatment (DAT), 30% did not plan to have DAT, with the main reason for this being “needing more time to decide about it”, in line with the international situation.

Conclusion: The study revealed comparable proportion and clinical characteristics of APD in Belgium as compared with the results published for the international cohort. Needing more time to

decide was the main reason for not receiving DAT amongst eligible patients. Improving standardization of APD characterization may aid optimization of treatment strategies including transition to DAT.

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References: 1. Fasano A, Fung VSC, Lopiano L, Elibol B, Smolentseva IG, Seppi K, Takáts A, Onuk K, Parra JC, Bergmann L, Sail K, Jalundhwala Y, Pirtosek Z. Characterizing advanced Parkinson’s disease: OBSERVE-PD observational study results of 2615 patients. BMC Neurol. 2019 Apr 2;19(1):50. doi: 10.1186/s12883-019-1276-8. PMID: 30940119; PMCID: PMC6444751.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/characterizing-advanced-parkinsons-disease-observe-pd-observational-study-results-of-the-belgian-subgroup/