I ran into Larry Golbe, MD, a PSP expert at a conference last week. He pointed out this interesting interesting article from late 2018. It’s about the reduced time to diagnosis in the New Jersey area for those with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). In the 1990s, the time from onset to diagnosis was about 44 months (just under 4 years). In the 2010s, the time from onset to diagnosis was about 29 months (about 2.5 years).
“Diagnosis of PSP earlier in the course may reduce its psychological and financial burden, permit earlier access to neuroprotective interventions, and avoid unnecessary diagnostic and therapeutic measures.”
Senior author Larry Golbe, MD and others speculate why there’s been a moderate improvement in latency to a PSP diagnosis. One thought is that there’s improved awareness among clinicians and the public about PSP due to the efforts of CurePSP, the advent of the web in the 1990s, and the public announcement by celebrity Dudley Moore of his diagnosis in 1998. (Moore died in 2002.)
Another thought is that clinicians have gotten better at recognizing those with PSP who don’t exhibit the “classic form.”
Several other guesses are made but you’ll need to read the full article, which you can find here: (available at no charge)
Is the Latency from Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Onset to Diagnosis Improving?
by Mansoureh Mamarabadi MD, Hadie Razjouyan MD, MPH, and Lawrence I. Golbe MD
Movement Disorders Clinical Practice
First published: 02 September 2018
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mdc3.12678
What do you think is the reason that the latency to receiving a diagnosis has improved?
Robin