Landmark 136 · Research tool
UK Brain Bank diagnostic criteria
In short
Checking 100 diagnoses against autopsy showed only 76% were really Parkinson's, and a written set of criteria lifted accuracy to 82%, giving trials a common entry standard.
- What it is
- Research tool
- Outcome
- Confirmed and built on
- When
- 1992
- Research lane
- Trial methods & regulation
- Last checked
- 19 Oct 2026
The research record
This is the project's file for this landmark, as written and checked. Sources are listed at the end; anything not yet confirmed is marked "Not yet verified".
Who
Andrew Hughes, Susan Daniel, Linda Kilford and Andrew Lees, Parkinson's Disease Society Brain Bank, Institute of Neurology, London (the brain bank was run by the Parkinson's Disease Society, now Parkinson's UK; funding not stated in the abstract).
What happened
Hughes et al. (JNNP 1992;55:181–184) studied 100 people diagnosed by consultants as having idiopathic Parkinson's, whose brains were donated to the Parkinson's Disease Society Brain Bank. 76 had Lewy bodies in the substantia nigra, as described in landmark 21. The other 24 had conditions such as progressive supranuclear palsy or multiple system atrophy. Applying the proposed criteria retrospectively raised accuracy to 82%. A companion paper on the same cohort (Hughes, Ben-Shlomo, Daniel, Lees, Neurology 1992;42:1142–1146) reported that stricter selection (asymmetric onset, no atypical features, no other cause) raised it to 93%, but rejected 32% of the pathologically confirmed cases.
Why it moved us toward a cure
A slowing drug can only be judged if the people enrolled really have the disease. These criteria became a standard entry rule for trials and research for decades, until the Movement Disorder Society criteria of 2015 (Postuma et al., Mov Disord 30:1591–1601). The authors warned that consultant diagnosis alone lets in other disorders and distorts trial and epidemiology results.
Outcome
Advanced. The criteria remain widely cited. The MDS 2015 criteria replaced them for research, and newer biological definitions (landmark 28) aim to replace clinical-only labels.
Sources
- Hughes et al., JNNP 1992;55(3):181–184, PubMed 1564476 · JNNP page
- Hughes et al., Neurology 1992;42:1142–1146, PMID 1603339
- Postuma et al., Mov Disord 2015;30:1591–1601, DOI 10.1002/mds.26424, PMID 26474316
- Not yet verified: the exact wording of the criteria (not in the abstract); how widely they were used in specific trials.
How it connects
Built on
- builds on Lewy bodies described; tied to the substantia nigra · 1912
Led to
- replaces MDS clinical diagnostic criteria · 2015