Parkinson disease and risk of acute myocardial infarction: A population-based, propensity score-matched, longitudinal follow-up study

Surprised by this result and unfortunately cannot access the full article... can only assume that the propensity matching process does something here and the control group has a low proportion of classical vascular risk factors like many PD subjects do... it is not what one would expect having done PD clinics for years... looking forward to the full article.

Am Heart J. 2015 Apr;169(4):508-14. doi: 10.1016/j.ahj.2014.11.018. Epub 2014 Dec 20.

Liang HW, Huang YP, Pan SL.

OBJECTIVES:

Previous studies on the risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) have generated inconsistent results. The purpose of this population-based longitudinal follow-up study was to investigate whether incident PD is associated with an increased risk of AMI.

METHODS:

A total of 3,211 subjects with at least 2 ambulatory visits with the principal diagnosis of PD in 2001 were enrolled in the PD group. The non-PD group consisted of 3,211 propensity score-matched subjects without PD. The propensity scores were computed using a logistic regression model that included age, sex, preexisting comorbidities, and socioeconomic status. The 3-year AMI-free survival rates of the 2 groups were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Stratified Cox proportional hazard regression with patients matched by propensity score was used to estimate the effect of PD on subsequent occurrence of AMI.

RESULTS:

During the 3-year follow-up period, 83 subjects in the PD group and 53 in the non-PD group developed AMI (either fatal or nonfatal) events. The hazard ratio of AMI for the PD group compared with the non-PD group was 1.67 (95% CI 1.15-2.41, P = .0067). The AMI-free survival rate of the PD group was significantly lower than that of the non-PD group (P = .0032). The hazard ratios associated with PD for the combined end point 1 (AMI or cardiovascular death) and combined end point 2 (AMI or all-cause death) were 1.46 (95% CI 1.14-1.88, P = .0029) and 1.42 (95% CI 1.24-1.64, P < .0001), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS:

This study shows that PD is related to an increased risk of AMI. Further studies are required to investigate the mechanism underlying this association.