A recent study confirmed established and identified novel predictors of Parkinson disease (PD) motor progression. Researchers used genetic data and baseline molecular and clinical variables from patients with PD and healthy controls to construct an ensemble of models to predict the annual rate of change in combined scores from the Movement Disorder Society—Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) parts II and III. 117 healthy controls and 312 patients with PD from the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) study were available for analysis, and 317 patients with PD from the Longitudinal and Biomarker Study in Parkinson’s disease (LABS-PD) were available for validation. They found:

• A strong performance was observed within the PPMI cohort and significant—albeit reduced—performance in the LABS-PD cohort.
• Individual predictive features identified from PPMI data were confirmed in the LABS-PD cohort.
• These included significant replication of higher baseline MDS-UPDRS motor score, male sex, and increased age, as well as a novel PD-specific epistatic interaction, all indicative of faster motor progression.