Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Apr 25;88(17):1630-1633.
doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000003848. Epub 2017 Mar 29.

Viral hepatitis and Parkinson disease: A national record-linkage study

Julia Pakpoor  1 , Alastair Noyce  1 , Raph Goldacre  1 , Marianna Selkihova  1 , Stephen Mullin  1 , Anette Schrag  1 , Andrew Lees  1 , Michael Goldacre  2
Affiliations

Viral hepatitis and Parkinson disease: A national record-linkage study

Julia Pakpoor et al. Neurology. .

Abstract

Objective: To study associations between viral hepatitis and Parkinson disease (PD).

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was done by analyzing linked English National Hospital Episode Statistics and mortality data (1999-2011). Cohorts of individuals with hepatitis B, hepatitis C, autoimmune hepatitis, chronic active hepatitis, and HIV were constructed, and compared to a reference cohort for subsequent rates of PD.

Results: The standardized rate ratio (RR) of PD following hepatitis B was 1.76 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.28-2.37) (p < 0.001), based on 44 observed compared with 25 expected cases. The RR of PD following hepatitis C was 1.51 (95% CI, 1.18-1.9) (p < 0.001), based on 48.5 expected and 73 observed cases. There was no significant association between autoimmune hepatitis, chronic active hepatitis or HIV, and subsequent PD. When including only those episodes of care for PD that occurred first at least 1 year following each exposure condition, the RR for hepatitis B and hepatitis C were 1.82 (1.29-2.5) and 1.43 (1.09-1.84), respectively.

Conclusions: We report strong evidence in favor of an elevation of rates of subsequent PD in patients with hepatitis B and hepatitis C. These findings may be explained by factors peculiar to viral hepatitis, but whether it reflects consequences of infection, shared disease mechanisms, or the result of antiviral treatment remains to be elucidated. Further work is needed to confirm this association and to investigate pathophysiologic pathways, potentially advancing etiologic understanding of PD more broadly.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources