Data from: Video-fluoroscopic swallowing study scale for predicting aspiration pneumonia in Parkinson's disease

Introduction A number of video-fluoroscopic swallowing study (VFSS)
abnormalities have been reported in patients with Parkinson's disease
(PD). However, the most crucial finding of subsequent aspiration pneumonia
has not been validated fully. We conducted a retrospective and
case-control study to determine the clinically significant VFSS findings
in this population, and to propose a practical scale for predicting
aspiration pneumonia in patients with PD. Methods We enrolled 184 PD
patients who underwent VFSS because of suspected dysphagia. The patients
who developed aspiration pneumonia within six months of the VFSS were
assigned as cases and the patients without aspiration pneumonia at six
months were designated as controls. Logistic regression analysis was
performed to determine the prognostic VFSS features based on the data of
swallowing 3 mL of jelly, which were used to make a PD VFSS scale (PDVFS).
The validity of the new PDVFS was evaluated by ROC analysis. Additionally,
we used the survival time analysis to compare time to death between
groups, stratified by the PDVFS score. Results Twenty-five patients
developed aspiration pneumonia. Among the previously-proposed VFSS
features, mastication, lingual motility prior to transfer, aspiration, and
total swallow time were identified as significant prognostic factors. We
combined these factors to form the PDVFS. The PDVFS score ranges from 0 to
12, with 12 being the worst. ROC analysis revealed 92% sensitivity and 82%
specificity at a cutoff point of 3. The higher PDVFS group showed shorter
time-to-death than the lower PDVFS group (log rank P = 0.001). Conclusion
Our newly developed VFSS severity scale (based on jelly swallowing) for
patients with PD was easy to rate and could predict subsequent aspiration
pneumonia and poor prognosis in patients with PD.