Introduction: In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of uric acid on the disease, its severity and progression in ET patients with partially co-clinical features with Parkinson's disease (PD).
Methods: Serum UA levels of 87 consecutive ET patients were measured and were matched according to age and sex with 87 healthy controls. Fahn-Tolosa-Marin scale was used for the severity of tremor. Sociodemographic characteristics, type of ET, duration of disease, and treatment modalities were evaluated.
Results: The mean uric acid level was calculated as 4.986±2.1458 mg/dL and 6.004±1.523 mg/dL in the patient and control groups, respectively (p≤0.005). The blood UA level of patients with sporadic (n: 61) ET was found to be lower than the familial ET (n: 26) (p≤0.005). The tremor severity of the family ET patients was lower than the sporadic ET. (n: 61) (p≤0.005). The mean blood UA level (4.429±1.216 mg/dL) in the patients with high total tremor severity scores (n: 48) was found lower than in the patients with low total tremor severity scores (n: 39) (5.673±2.106 mg/dL) (P=0.000). The serum UA level was significantly lower in the patients whose disease duration longer than 5 years than in patients whose duration of the disease was shorter than 5 years. 5.732±1.240 for ≥5 years; 6.438±0.286≤5 years) (P=0.001).
Conclusion: We hypothesize that as a result of high antioxidant properties of high serum uric acid levels, it is a biomarker that can show disease risk and progression in patients with ET as well as PD.
Keywords: Essential tremor; Fahn-Tolosa-Marin tremor scale; antioxidant effect; familial essential tremor; sporadic essential tremor; uric acid.
Copyright: © 2020 Turkish Neuropsychiatric Society.