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Abstract
Background/objective: Very little is known about the association between glaucoma and Parkinson’s disease in the elderly. The objective of this study was to determine whether glaucoma is associated with Parkinson’s disease in older people in Taiwan.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted to analyze the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program database from 2000 to 2010. We included 4330 subjects aged 65 years or older with newly diagnosed glaucoma as the glaucoma group, and 17,000 randomly selected subjects without a glaucoma diagnosis as the non-glaucoma group. Both groups were matched for sex, age, other comorbidities, and index year of glaucoma diagnosis. The incidence of Parkinson’s disease at the end of 2011 was measured. A multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression model was used to measure the hazard ratio and 95% confidence intervals for Parkinson’s disease associated with glaucoma.
Results: The overall incidence of Parkinson’s disease was 1.28-fold higher in the glaucoma group than that in the non-glaucoma group (7.73 vs. 6.02 per 1000 person-years; 95% confidence interval 1.18, 1.40). After controlling for potential confounding factors, the adjusted hazard ratio of Parkinson’s disease was 1.23 for the glaucoma group (95% confidence interval 1.05, 1.46), compared with the non-glaucoma group.
Conclusions: Older people with glaucoma correlate with a small but statistically significant increase in the risk for Parkinson’s disease. Whether glaucoma may be a non-motor feature of Parkinson’s disease in older people requires further research to confirm.
Transparency
Declaration of funding
This study was supported in part by Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare Clinical Trial Center (MOHW106-TDU-B-212-113004), China Medical University Hospital, Academia Sinica Taiwan Biobank Stroke Biosignature Project (BM10501010037), National Research Program for Biopharmaceuticals (NRPB) Stroke Clinical Trial Consortium (MOST 105-2325-B-039 -003), Tseng-Lien Lin Foundation in Taichung in Taiwan, Taiwan Brain Disease Foundation in Taipei in Taiwan, and Katsuzo and Kiyo Aoshima Memorial Funds in Japan. These funding agencies did not influence the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Author contributions
S.W.L. planned and conducted this study. He substantially contributed to the conception of the article, initiated the draft of the article, and critically revised the article. C.L.L. conducted the data analysis and critically revised the article. K.F.L. planned and conducted this study. He participated in the data interpretation and critically revised the article.
Declaration of financial/other relationships
S.W.L., C.L.L. and K.F.L. have disclosed that they have no significant relationships with or financial interests in any commercial companies related to this study or article.
CMRO peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank the National Health Research Institute in Taiwan for providing us with the insurance claims data.