Lumbar Spinal Stenosis in Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Objective: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement. In recent publications, spinal degenerative findings are significantly higher in patients with PD than healthy controls. Spinal deformities and motor movement disorders are responsible. Spinal stenosis and PD may show common clinical findings. Here, lumbar sagittal and axial spinal for this diameter measurements at Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), will be analyzed in patients with PD. Material and Methods: The study was planned as a case-control study. The patients who were admitted to the outpatient clinic with a diagnosis of PD during the recent year were analyzed. The control group consisted of healthy volunteers with a similar age (p=0.105) and gender (p=0.54). On lumbar MRI, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5 spinal canal diameters were measured in all patients and the narrowest anteroposterior and coronal spinal canal diameter measurements in the axial section were performed by the same experienced clinician. Results: The study included 50 patients with PD with a mean age of 63.2±11.9 years and 41 control patients with a mean age of 67.2 ± 6.6 years. Accordingly, sagittal diameter L2 (p=0.006), L3 (p=0.008), L5 (p=0.006), axial cross-sectional anteroposterior diameter (p<0.001) and axial section coronal diameter (p=0.006) measurements were found significantly low in patient group compared to healthy controls. Conclusion: Lumbar spinal diameter was significantly low in patients with PD. Spinal disorders in PD may be caused by motor effect of degenerative process or primary disease. In addition, neurodegenerative pathogenesis in disease development may contribute to the degenerative process in the spinal canal.