BACKGROUND: Previous studies on the number of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients in the future based on projections of population size underestimated PD burden because they did not take into account the improvement of life expectancy over time.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to assess PD progression from 2010 to 2030 in France in terms of prevalent patient numbers, prevalence rates, lifetime risk, and life expectancy with PD, accounting for projections of overall mortality and increased risk of death of PD patients.

METHODS: To provide projections of PD burden, we applied a multistate approach considering age and calendar time to incidence and prevalence rates of PD (France 2010) based on drug claims and national demographic data.

RESULTS: The number of PD patients will increase by approximately 65% between 2010 (n = 155,000) and 2030 (n approximately 260,000), mainly for individuals older than 65 years; the prevalence rate of PD after age 45 will increase from 0.59% in 2010 to approximately 0.80% in 2030. We project an extension of approximately 3 years of the life expectancy of PD patients at 65 years between 2010 (women, 14.8 years; men, 13.0 years) and 2030 (women, 17.8 years; men, 16.1 years), and a relative increase of about 10% of the lifetime risk of PD at 45 years between 2010 (women, 5.5%; men, 6.0%) and 2030 (women, 6.3%; men, 7.4%).

CONCLUSIONS: The number of PD patients is predicted to grow substantially in future years as a consequence of population aging and life expectancy improvement. The assessment of the future PD burden is an important step for planning resources needed for patient care in aging societies. (c) 2018 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.