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Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Hepatitis B and C may be linked to increased risk of Parkinson's disease

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American Academy of Neurology
Viral hepatitis and Parkinson disease A national record-linkage study
We report strong evidence in favor of an elevation of rates of subsequent PD in patients with hepatitis B and hepatitis C. These findings may be explained by factors peculiar to viral hepatitis, but whether it reflects consequences of infection, shared disease mechanisms, or the result of antiviral treatment remains to be elucidated. Further work is needed to confirm this association and to investigate pathophysiologic pathways, potentially advancing etiologic understanding of PD more broadly
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Medscape Medical News > Neurology
Hepatitis B and C Linked to Parkinson's
Pauline Anderson
March 29, 2017
Patients with hepatitis B or hepatitis C may have a significantly increased risk for Parkinson's disease (PD), a new study suggests.
Previous research had tied hepatitis C, but not hepatitis B, to PD. Results of the new study showed no such relationship with PD among patients with autoimmune hepatitis, chronic active hepatitis, or HIV.

"Clinicians caring for patients with a history of hepatitis B or C should be aware of this seeming increased risk of PD among their patients, so that if neurological symptoms present, these are detected early," lead author, Julia Pakpoor, BA, BM, Bch, Unit of Health Care Epidemiology, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, told Medscape Medical News.
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Hepatitis B and C may be linked to increased risk of Parkinson's disease
American Academy of Neurology

The study was published online March 29 in Neurology.

MINNEAPOLIS - The viruses hepatitis B and C may both be associated with an increased risk of Parkinson's disease, according to a study published in the March 29, 2017, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The hepatitis virus affects the liver.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is estimated that anywhere from 850,000 to 2.2 million people in the United States have chronic hepatitis B virus infection and anywhere from 2.7 to 3.9 million people have chronic hepatitis C. While both can lead to serious illness, many people have few symptoms and do not realize they have the virus, especially at first.

Hepatitis B is spread through contact with blood and body fluids of an infected person, such as unprotected sex, sharing needles, getting a tattoo or piercing with unsterilized tools or sharing razors or toothbrushes with an infected person.

Hepatitis C is spread through blood-to-blood contact such as sharing needles, razors and toothbrushes and is passed on at birth by infected mothers.

"The development of Parkinson's disease is complex, with both genetic and environmental factors," said study author Julia Pakpoor, BM, BCh, of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. "It's possible that the hepatitis virus itself or perhaps the treatment for the infection could play a role in triggering Parkinson's disease or it's possible that people who are susceptible to hepatitis infections are also more susceptible to Parkinson's disease. We hope that identifying this relationship may help us to better understand how Parkinson's disease develops."

For the study, researchers examined hospital records from a large British database. They looked for records of people with a first case of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, autoimmune hepatitis, chronic active hepatitis and HIV from 1999 to 2011. Then those people were compared to the hospital records of people with relatively minor conditions such as cataract surgery, bunions and knee replacement surgery. For all of the participants, researchers looked at the records to see who later developed Parkinson's disease.

There were nearly 22,000 people with hepatitis B, 48,000 with hepatitis C, 6,000 with autoimmune hepatitis, 4,000 with chronic active hepatitis and nearly 20,000 with HIV. They were compared to more than 6 million people with minor conditions.

The study found that people with hepatitis B were 76 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those in the comparison group, and people with hepatitis C were 51 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease. A total of 44 people with hepatitis B developed Parkinson's disease, compared to 25 cases that would be expected in the general population. For people with hepatitis C, 73 people developed Parkinson's disease, where about 49 cases would have been expected in the general population.

People with autoimmune hepatitis, chronic active hepatitis and HIV did not have an increased rate of Parkinson's disease.

A previous study from Taiwan showed a relationship between hepatitis C and Parkinson's disease, but it did not show any relationship for hepatitis B.

Pakpoor said that limitations of the current study include that they could not adjust for lifestyle factors such as smoking and alcohol use, which could affect Parkinson's disease risk, and that the study was based solely on people who were evaluated at a hospital.

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The British National Institute for Health Research funded the development of the datasets and software.

The American Academy of Neurology is the world's largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with 32,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

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