COULD SEBORRHEIC DERMATITIS BE IMPLICATED IN THE PATHOGENESIS OF PARKINSONISM

The spouses of a group of aged sufferers have been demonstrated to hav e multifarious differences relevant to parkinsonism from matched contr ols, which were difficult to explain by selective mating, learned or r eactive behaviour. Could parkinsonism be transmissable? The frequency of inflammation and scaling on head or neck was greater (P = 0.05) in these spouses (19 available) than in controls (36), the best discrimin ating site of inflammation being scalp (P = 0.02). Both seborrhoeic de rmatitis and overt, or pre-clinical, parkinsonism occurred in sufferer s and spouses: to presume they are not causally related is to accept m ultiple entities. In favour of seborrhoeic dermatitis being causal for parkinsonism, rather than vice versa, is the involvement of a known o rganism, Pityrosporum ovale, in the dermatitis, and that the evidence of parkinsonism in the spouses indicated that they were only part way down the path towards the clinical condition.