Is neuroinflammation involved in the development of dementia in patients with Parkinson's disease?

Objective: High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is an extremely sensitive systemic marker of inflammation and tissue damage, and increased levels of hs-CRP are strongly associated with inflammatory reactions. Microglia-mediated neuroinflammation has been hypothesized to play an important role in the pathogenesis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the clinical value of the hs-CRP level in patients with PD is poorly defined. Therefore, we conducted this study to analyze the differences in the hs-CRP levels in PD patients with and without dementia.
Methods: We examined 72 PD patients without dementia (PDwoD) and 45 PD patients with dementia (PDD), as well as 84 control subjects. We investigated the differences in the hs-CRP and fibrinogen levels between these three groups.
Results: The mean hs-CRP and fibrinogen values were not significantly different between the PDwoD and PDD groups; however, these two groups had significantly higher mean hs-CRP and fibrinogen values than the control group.
Conclusion: It is known that inflammation plays a role in the pathogenesis of PD and dementia. However, based on the results of this study, we cautiously speculate that although neuroinflammation plays a role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, including PD and dementia, it may be unrelated to the pathogenesis of dementia in patients with PD.