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BACKGROUND: Neurological involvement in Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is widely recognized. However, the role of pre-existing neurological comorbidities in modulating COVID-19-related mortality still remains unclear. This cohort study evaluates the COVID-19-related case fatality rate (CFR) of patients with pre-existing neurological diseases. METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated all patients consecutively admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of COVID-19 between March and April 2020. We used a multivariate regression analysis to estimate the association between pre-existing neurological diseases and COVID-19-related mortality. Then, we compared the CFR and survival curves of two cohorts (patients suffering vs. those not suffering from pre-existing neurological disease), matched trough the propensity score (PS). Age and other comorbidities were considered for PS calculation. We applied a 1:1 matching for the entire neurological cohort and, separately, for cerebrovascular, neurodegenerative, and other neurological diseases. RESULTS: Among 332 patients, 75 (22.6%) were affected by pre-existing neurological disease (n = 29 cerebrovascular, n = 26 neurodegenerative, n = 20 others). From the multivariate regression analysis, they resulted with a significant increase of COVID-19-related mortality (OR:2.559; 95%CI 1.181-5.545; p

Objective To determine the impact of levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) infusion on different subtypes of freezing of gait (FoG) classified according to levodopa responsiveness in advanced Parkinson disease (PD) patients. Methods We retrospectively assessed the presence and severity of FoG in 32 advanced PD patients based on the Unified PD Rating Scale (UPDRS) item 14 score. Different FoG subtypes were inferred from the score variation with oral dopaminergic medications. Modifications following long-term LCIG infusion were analysed. Motor symptoms and motor complications were assessed by UPDRS part III and IV respectively. Results FoG related UPDRS score varied from 2.6 ± 0.9 in OFF condition to 0.9 ± 0.8 in the ON condition at baseline and improved to 0.6 ± 0.7 with LCIG infusion (p = 0.027). After a mean of 2.59 ± 1.12 years of continuous LCIG infusion, Pseudo-ON-FoG improved to a greater extent with LCIG infusion than with oral therapy in 12 patients (38%) and equally well in 8 patients (25%), OFF-type-FoG was controlled equally well in 8 patients (25%) and worsened slightly in 3 patients (9%). Unresponsive-FoG, present in one patient (3%), was unmodified by LCIG infusion. Conclusions Even though limited by the subjective simple measure of FoG, this study suggests that patients undergoing LCIG infusion maintain a good long-term control of FoG. Pseudo-on-FoG improves in a considerable percentage of patients and OFF-type-FoG remains well controlled with LCIG infusion. Further studies with a larger number of patients and objective measures of FoG are needed to confirm these findings.