The Faculty of Pharmacy discussed the master’s thesis entitled “Serum Level of S100B Protein and its Association with Disease Activity and Therapeutic Adherence in Parkinson Disease Patients” by Mustafa Raheem Oglah and his supervisors, Assist. Prof. Dr. Ali Abdulhussain Kasim and Assist. Prof. Dr. Bahaa A. Hassan in the Clinical Phamacy Department.
The study aimed to measure the therapeutic adherence rate of a cohort of Iraqi PD patients to different anti-Parkinson medications and to measure the serum S100B level in these patients and its potential association with PD disease stage. Furthermore, to study the association of serum S100B level with therapeutic adherence and its potential to be used as a biomarker to predict therapeutic adherence in PD patients.
This cross-sectional study was carried out in the Movement Disorders Consultancy Clinic in Dr. Saad Al-Witry Neuroscience Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, under the supervision of a consultant neurologist from December 2021 until November 2022. Sixty-eight adult outpatients of both genders who were already diagnosed with PD and receiving different anti-Parkinson medications were enrolled in the study. The Hoehn and Yahr scale was used to determine the stage of disease, while therapeutic adherence to medications was assessed using the Arabic version of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale. The serum S100B level was measured by an enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay.
The study showed that the therapeutic adherence rate of Iraqi PD patients to anti-Parkinson medications is considerably low and is significantly associated with age, with PD patients aged below 56 years having higher adherence scores. The median serum S100B level in the enrolled PD patients was 10.55 (13.3) ng/l; the level was not associated with PD stage. Finally, serum S100B level was negatively correlated with therapeutic adherence level, and serum S100B level has the potential to serve as a good predictive marker of therapeutic adherence of PD patients to anti-Parkinson medications.
