PICNICS

The PICNICS (Parkinsonism: Incidence and Cognitive and Non-motor heterogeneity In CambridgeShire) study is a second observational cohort study which tracks the progression of patients with Parkinson’s disease over time and is similar in design to the CamPaIGN study. The study recruited a large population-representative group of patients (280) who were newly-diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease between 2008 and 2013 in our region, and assessed them with detailed clinical measures, as well as memory and thinking tests and blood tests. We are continuing to follow-up PICNICS study participants every 18 months in our Parkinson’s Research Clinic. One of the aims of this study has been to replicate our findings in the CamPaIGN study in a second independent group of people, which is important to strengthen our research and make sure our findings are robust. Our measurements of the frequency of the new Parkinson’s cases in the population were very similar in the two studies, and we found that the characteristics of the patients were well aligned. We are now continuing to explore patterns of disease progression and predictors of long-term outcomes in Parkinson’s through a major collaborative project involving PICNICS, CamPaIGN and four other similar population-representative cohorts led by colleagues in Aberdeen, Newcastle, Norway and Sweden (Parkinson’s Incidence Cohorts Collaboration, PICC). The combined dataset includes long-term clinical and genetic information from an unbiased group over 1000 people with Parkinson’s which provides an invaluable resource to help us to better understand the variability and progression of the disease.

This work has received funding from Parkinson’s UK, the Van Geest Foundation and Cure Parkinson’s, and is supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.