Overall, the clinical diagnoses of parkinsonian subtypes had good concordance with pathological confirmation (86.7%), according to a recent study that aimed to examine discrepancies between the clinical diagnosis of parkinsonism and neuropathological findings. Clinical-pathological discrepancies, however, were documented in 13.3% of the sample. Researchers used a defined population-based incidence cohort with clinical parkinsonism (n=669) from the Rochester Epidemiology Project in Olmsted County, MN, 1991-2010. They reviewed reports of all patients who underwent neuropathologic examination at autopsy (n= 60; 9%) and applied consensus pathologic guidelines for neurodegenerative disease diagnosis. They found:

• Among total patients examined pathologically, the median time from the last recorded clinical diagnosis to death was 7 years (range from 2 to 17 years).
• Clinical-pathological concordance was found in 52 cases (86.7%), whereas 8 (13.3%) had a clinical-pathological discrepancy.