Past exposure to neuroleptic drugs and risk of Parkinson disease in an
elderly cohort.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23019267/
AuthorsFoubert-Samier A, et al.


Neurology. 2012 Sep 26. [Epub ahead of print]


Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Neuroleptics and neuroleptic-like drugs are known to induce
parkinsonism, which may reveal underlying Parkinson disease (PD) in
some cases. We assessed the long-term risk of developing PD after past
exposure to these drugs, in a 15-year prospective population-based
elderly cohort study.

METHODS: We used the Cox proportional hazards model to assess the
relation between past exposure to neuroleptics and the risk of
developing incident PD. All incident cases of parkinsonism were
identified by standardized procedure and validated by a committee of
experts.

RESULTS: Of 2,991 subjects followed, 117 developed parkinsonism and 43
developed probable PD during follow-up, of whom 22.2% and 32.6%,
respectively, had been exposed to neuroleptics, compared to 16.6% for
subjects without parkinsonism. About a third of subjects presented
transient parkinsonism during drug exposure. After adjustment for
gender and past occupation, past exposure to neuroleptics was
associated with incident PD (relative risk, 3.16; 95% confidence
interval [CI], 1.65-6.04). The relative risk was 3.65 (95% CI,
1.41-9.45) for benzamides and 2.59 (95% CI, 1.23-5.43) for
phenothiazines. The population-attributable fraction of the risk for
developing PD was 8.2% for benzamides and 12.2% for phenothiazines.

CONCLUSIONS: In a French elderly cohort, the risk of probable PD was
increased by 3.2-fold after exposure to neuroleptics. This finding
suggests the necessity of limiting the use of such drugs in elderly
people.

PMID 23019267 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]