Ten-Year Relative Survival From the Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease: A Nationwide Database Study

Varying early survival rates have been reported across studies on patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). In this study, we reported the 10-year relative survival rate of patients with PD using a nationwide database.

This was a population-based cohort study.

We identified incident PD cases from 2004 to 2006 using the PD registration codes from the National Health Insurance Service database covering the entire South Korean population.

Relative survival up to 10 years was evaluated by adjusting all-cause survival for expected survival, estimated from population life tables and matched by sex, age, and year of diagnosis.

Of the 10,159 patients with PD, 4675 (46.0%) patients survived 10 years after diagnosis. Relative survival rates decreased with time after diagnosis (0.972 after 1 year, 0.772 after 5 years, and 0.588 after 10 years). Ten-year relative survival gradually decreased with age at diagnosis. Men had a lower relative survival rate than women 2 years post diagnosis, and if they were older than 60 years.

Patients diagnosed with PD are expected to have a lower 10-year relative survival. In the real world, patients with PD might have lower survival than the general population even in the early disease stage. Our results suggest further efforts to prevent premature mortality among patients with PD.