Affiliations: [a] Department of Medical Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
| [b] DAME, University of Udine, Udine, Italy
| [c] ASUITS (Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Integrata di Trieste), Trieste, Italy
| [d] Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS, Milano, Italy
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Gabriella Marcon, MD, PhD, Department of Medical Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, Strada di Fiume 447, 34100 Trieste, Italy. Tel.: +39 040 399 4007; E-mail: gmarcon@units.it; Department of Area of Medicine and Surgery, University of Udine, Piazzale Kolbe 4, 33100 Udine, Italy. Tel.: +39 0432 494300; E-mail: gabriella.marcon@uniud.it.
Abstract: The number of people reaching old age is growing dramatically and centenarians are among the fastest growing age groups. Since no epidemiological study on Parkinson’s disease (PD) in this age class is present in the medical literature, we estimated PD prevalence in the Centenari a Trieste (CaT) study. Participating centenarians were examined by a neurologist, who also retrieved their remote and pharmacological anamnesis. Ninety centenarians received a neurological examination. No subject had PD clinical signs. Moreover, none had a previous diagnosis of PD or had taken or was taking anti-Parkinson treatment. This simple but consistent clinical observation permits some physio-pathological hypotheses.
