Objective:
We aim to describe sex-related longitudinal changes in (1) motor features and motor aspects of experiences of daily living and (2) biologic measures as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers and dopamine transporter deficit on DaTscanTM uptake in de novo, drug-naïve Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients.
Background:
Available data on sex differences in motor symptoms and biological biomarkers in PD come from single-center, cross-sectional studies involving small sample sizes.
Method: Four hundreds and twenty-three PD patients stratified by sex (65.4% men) followed for 5 years since diagnosis from the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) were included in the present analysis.
Results:
Both Off and On the Movement Disorder Society–Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) part III scores significantly increased over time in both sexes (p < 0.01). Similarly, motor aspects of experiences of daily living scores (MDS-UPDRS part II) increased over time in both men and women, with men experiencing a larger increase (i.e., for every year increase, the mean MDS-UPDRS part II increases by a multiplicative factor of 1.0 in men, compared to 0.52 in women, p < 0.01). Men also experienced a higher increase in antiparkinsonian treatment (p = 0.03). Time to reaching certain milestones, including time to surgical therapy, initiation of dopaminergic medications, and time to development of motor complications, dyskinesias, and motor fluctuations did not differ by sex. The longitudinal change in CSF biomarkers and DaTscanTM uptake did not show any sex interaction.
Conclusion: This is the first study to evaluate these sex-related longitudinal changes in a large cohort of de novo, drug-naïve, PD participants. These findings suggest that heterogeneity is not driven by differences between sexes as evaluated with clinician-based motor assessments (i.e, MDS-UPDRS part III) or clinical milestone. The main sex differences in this de novo cohort were in the self-assessment of disease-related motor disability (MDS-UPDRS part II).
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
M. Picillo, S. Bressman, C. Coffey, N. Dahodwala, R. Sanders-Pullman, C. Tanner, A. Amara. Sex-related longitudinal change of motor features and biological biomarkers in early Parkinson’s disease from the PPMI cohort [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2020; 35 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/sex-related-longitudinal-change-of-motor-features-and-biological-biomarkers-in-early-parkinsons-disease-from-the-ppmi-cohort/. Accessed June 15, 2025.« Back to MDS Virtual Congress 2020
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/sex-related-longitudinal-change-of-motor-features-and-biological-biomarkers-in-early-parkinsons-disease-from-the-ppmi-cohort/