Parkinson's Disease and Risk of Fracture: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Backgrounds/Objective: Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease among the elderly population. However, epidemiological evidence on the relationship of PD with risk of fracture has not been systematically assessed. Therefore, we performed this meta-analysis of prospective studies to explore the association between PD and risk of fracture. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane Library up to February 26, 2014 were searched to identify eligible studies. Random-effects model was used to pool the results. Results: Six studies that totally involved 69,387 participants were included for analysis. Overall, PD patients had an increased risk of fracture compared with control subjects (pooled hazard ratio = 2.66, 95% confidence interval: 2.10-3.36). No publication bias was observed across studies and the subgroup as well as sensitivity analysis suggested that the general results were robust. Conclusion: The present study suggested that PD is associated with an increased risk of fracture. However, given the limited number and moderate quality of included studies, well-designed prospective cohort studies are required to confirm the findings from this meta-analysis.