Clinical Diagnostic Accuracy of Parkinson's Disease: Where Do We Stand?

Clinical diagnostic accuracy of Parkinson's disease (PD) remains suboptimal. Changes in disease concept may have improved clinical diagnostic accuracy in the past decade. However, current clinical diagnostic criteria have not been validated against neuropathological confirmation.

This study aims to provide up-to-date clinical diagnostic accuracy data and validate current clinical diagnostic criteria for PD against neuropathology.

A retrospective review of medical records of consecutive patients with parkinsonism from the Queen Square Brain Bank was performed between 2009 and 2019. Clinical diagnosis was documented at early (within 5 years of motor symptom onset) and final stages and categorized by movement disorder experts or regular clinicians. Movement Disorder Society Parkinson's disease (MDS-PD) diagnostic criteria were retrospectively applied. Diagnostic accuracy parameters (sensitivity, specificity, positive/negative predictive value, and accuracy) were calculated using neuropathological diagnosis as the gold standard.

A total of 267 patients (141 PD and 126 non-PD parkinsonism) were included. Clinical diagnostic accuracy was 97.2% for experts, 92.5% for the MDS clinically probable PD criteria, and 90.3% for clinicians. Similar figures were obtained when applied at an early stage (91.5%, 89.5%, and 84.2% diagnostic accuracy, respectively). MDS clinically established early PD criteria demonstrated very high specificity (98.4%) at early stages.

Our results showed an important improvement in PD clinical diagnostic accuracy in clinical practice over the past decade, more marked at early stages of the disease. MDS-PD diagnostic criteria is a valid tool in clinical practice and research for the identification of PD patients showing excellent sensitivity and specificity, although movement disorder experts' diagnosis remains the gold standard PD diagnosis during life. © 2023 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.