Study Links Rosacea to Greater Parkinson Risk

According to a new study, rosacea could be associated with a greater risk of Parkinson disease (PD).

In an effort to study potential links between new-onset PD and the chronic inflammatory skin disease, a team evaluated data from more than 5.4 million individuals. Among this group, 22,387 had been diagnosed with PD, while 68,053 had rosacea. According to the authors, the rates for PD were 3.54 per 10,000 person years, compared to 7.62 per 10,000 person years among patients with rosacea, who also tended to develop PD around 2.4 years earlier, on average.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
RELATED CONTENT
Blueberries Fight Parkinson's Disease
Can Bright Light Improve Sleep in Parkinson's?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A “large majority” of patients with rosacea do not seek medical treatment, says lead study author Alexander Egeberg, MD, PhD, from the department of dermatology and allergology at Herlev and Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen.

However, he says, “medical assessment may be warranted in such patients. Importantly, rosacea should be considered more than just a cosmetic disorder, as it may have a number of systemic implications, including risk of neurologic diseases.”

While the presence of rosacea does not necessarily mean that a patient will develop PD, the presence of rosacea in patients with neurological symptoms “may enable early detection and timely referral to relevant specialists,” says Egeberg.

The observed association between rosacea and neuroinflammatory diseases, including migraine, sclerosis and, now, PD, “is indeed relevant to primary care physicians,” adds co-author Jacob Thyssen, MD, PhD, an associate professor in the department of dermatology and allergology at Gentofte Hospital University Hospital.

“It is my clear impression that these patients benefit from understanding the clustering of these disorders in their families and, sometimes, themselves,” continues Thyssen.

Noting that it’s “premature” to estimate the direct healthcare benefit, Thyssen is hopeful that physicians may someday soon be able to help make earlier diagnoses of neuroinflammatory diseases such as Parkinson “simply by looking at the facial skin of their patients.”

Thyssen also points out that the authors are now investigating whether systemic therapy can prevent such neuroinflammatory disorders. If that proves to be the case, “this is clearly relevant for primary care,” he says, “as we may then be able to identify patients at particular risk.”

—Mark McGraw

Reference:

Egeberg A, Hansen P, Gislason GH, Thyssen J. Exploring the association between rosacea and parkinson disease: a Danish nationwide cohort study [published online March 21, 2016]. JAMA Neurol. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2016.0022.