The Relationship Between Serum Uric Acid Levels and Clinical Features in Essential Tremor

Introduction: In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of uric acid on the disease, its severity and progression in ET patients with partially co-clinical features with Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods: Serum UA levels of 87 consecutive ET patients were measured and were matched according to age and sex with 87 healthy controls. Fahn-Tolosa-Marin scale was used for the severity of tremor. Sociodemographic characteristics, type of ET, duration of disease, and treatment modalities were evaluated. Results: The mean uric acid level was calculated as 4.986 +/- 2.1458 mg/c11.. and 6.004 +/- 1.523 mg/dL in the patient and control groups, respectively (p <= 0.005). The blood UA level of patients with sporadic (n: 61) ET was found to be lower than the familial ET (n: 26) (p <= 0.005). The tremor severity of the family ET patients was lower than the sporadic ET (n: 61) (p <= 0.005). The mean blood UA level (4.429 +/- 1.216 mg/dL) in the patients with high total tremor severity scores (n: 48) was found lower than in the patients with low total tremor severity scores (n: 39) (5.673 +/- 2.106 mg/dL) (P=0.000). The serum UA level was significantly lower in the patients whose disease duration longer than 5 years than in patients whose duration of the disease was shorter than 5 years. 5.732 +/- 1.240 for >= 5 years; 6.438 +/- 0.286 <= 5 years) (P=0.001). Conclusion: We hypothesize that as a result of high antioxidant properties of high serum uric acid levels, it is a biomarker that can show disease risk and progression in patients with ET as well as PD.