PANDA study: subtyping of Parkinson's disease - cohort study protocol

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Biomarker Discovery
• Precision Medicine

Background:

• Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder with varied symptoms, hindering personalized treatment.
• Current PD subtyping relies on limited data, lacking an integrated approach using neuroimaging and fluid biomarkers.
• The Prospective Assessments with Neuroimaging and fluid Data Analysis in PD (PANDA) study addresses this gap by employing a multimodal strategy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify distinct, biologically and neuroimaging-defined subtypes of Parkinson's disease.
• To track the progression of PD over time within identified subtypes.
• To discover novel biomarkers for stratifying PD patients and guiding precision medicine.

Main Methods:

• Recruitment of 500 PD patients and 100 healthy controls for a longitudinal cohort study.
• Comprehensive data collection including brain MRI, fluid biomarkers (blood, CSF), clinical assessments, and gait analysis over 4 years.
• Utilizing data-driven clustering and longitudinal modeling for subtype identification and stability assessment.

Main Results:

• The study is ongoing, with recruitment and data collection in progress.
• Initial analyses are expected to reveal distinct PD subtypes based on integrated multimodal data.
• Biomarker identification for patient stratification will be a key outcome.

Conclusions:

• The PANDA study is poised to advance the understanding of PD heterogeneity.
• Findings are expected to facilitate the development of precision medicine strategies for Parkinson's disease.
• This integrated approach will provide a foundation for targeted therapeutic interventions.