Parkinson's disease patients may have higher rates of Covid-19 mortality in Iran

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease (PD) patients may be at increased risk of Covid-19 mortality due to the nature of their disease or underlying conditions. METHOD: The information of 12,909 Covid-19 patients who were hospitalized during the last eleven months were collected from the data depository of two referral university hospitals. Eighty-seven of these patients were diagnosed with PD, and thirty-one of these PD patients died because of Covid-19. 2132 other deaths occurred in these centers, related to Covid-19 of non-PD patients. Fisher exact test, Chi-square test, and Principle component analysis were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: The mortality among PD patients and other hospitalized patients was 35.6% and 19.8%, respectively, and the difference between the mortality of these two groups was found to be statistically significant (p-value<0.01). The mean age of PD patients who passed away was 77.06 ± 7.46, and it was not significantly different from that of alive PD patients (p-value>0.05). Alzheimer's disease as an underlying condition was more frequent in deceased PD patients in comparison to survived PD patients, and this difference was found to be statistically significant (p-value<0.01). CONCLUSION: PD patients possess a higher rate of Covid-19 mortality in comparison with other patients hospitalized for Covid-19. PD pathophysiology, advanced age, underlying conditions, and health systems’ efficacy may play an essential role in such an outcome.