Association of orthostatic hypotension with Parkinson's disease: a meta-analysis

Orthostatic hypotension (OH) is a common non-motor sign of Parkinson's disease (PD). Several epidemiological studies have estimated the association between OH and PD with controversial results. Here, a meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between them.

PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CNKI (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure), VIP (Database of Chinese Scientific and Technical Periodicals), and Wanfang databases were searched for eligible publications from October 2003 to December 2017. Prevalence numbers from studies were pooled using a non-linear random-effects meta-analysis. Random effect model was used to calculate the pooled odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from individual studies. Publication bias was estimated by Egger's test, Begg's test, and the funnel plot.

Nineteen studies involving 1620 PD patients and 898 healthy controls were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled estimate of the prevalence of OH in PD was 27.7% compared with 7.9% of that in control. The pooled OR of OH with PD was 4.343 (95% CI 3.323-5.676) with a low heterogeneity (I² = 12.5%, P_{heterogeneity} = 0.301).

In the present meta-analysis, the pooled OR of OH with PD was 4.343 (95% CI 3.323-5.676) with a low heterogeneity, which showed a significant association between OH and increased risk of PD.