Background/objective: Anti-inflammatory drugs may prevent Parkinson disease (PD) by inhibiting a putative underlying neuroinflammatory process. We tested the hypothesis that anti-inflammatory drugs reduce PD incidence and that there are differential effects by type of anti-inflammatory, duration of use, or intensity of use.
Methods: MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for studies that reported risk of PD associated with anti-inflammatory medications. Random-effects meta-analyses were used to pool results across studies for each type of anti-inflammatory drug. Stratified meta-analyses were used to assess duration- and intensity-response.
Results: Seven studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria, all of which reported associations between nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and PD, 6 of which reported on aspirin, and 2 of which reported on acetaminophen. Overall, a 15% reduction in PD incidence was observed among users of nonaspirin NSAIDS (relative risk [RR] 0.85, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.77-0.94), with a similar effect observed for ibuprofen use. The protective effect of nonaspirin NSAIDs was more pronounced among regular users (RR 0.71, 95% CI 0.58-0.89) and long-term users (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.59-1.07). No protective effect was observed for aspirin (RR 1.08, 95% CI 0.92-1.27) or acetaminophen (RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.87-1.30). Sensitivity analyses found results to be robust.
Conclusions: There may be a protective effect of nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use on risk of Parkinson disease (PD) consistent with a possible neuroinflammatory pathway in PD pathogenesis.