Grant: Project Grant

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common motor disorder in the population. Despite intensive research for several decades, there is still no drug available to delay the onset and progression of PD. Tragically, the disease will inevitably progress in patients, which will considerably affect their quality of life and that of their family caregivers. The overarching objective of this project is to evaluate if dutasteride, a drug already approved by Health Canada to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and androgenic alopecia, could be repositioned to treat PD. Following preclinical evidence showing that dutasteride has robust neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties in a male mouse model of PD, we will conduct longitudinal population-based cohort studies to examine if dutasteride is associated with a significant reduction of the incidence of PD and an improvement of PD outcomes. To this end, users of dutasteride will be compared to users of tamsulosin, another treatment for BPH and alopecia, using Canadian databases that contain detailed healthcare records for men using dutasteride or tamsulosin. Using advanced epidemiological and statistical approaches to minimize biases, we will measure and compare the rates of PD incidence and PD outcomes in users of dutasteride and tamsulosin. This study will provide essential information paving the way for clinical trials aiming to establish the efficacy of dutasteride on PD. Overall, this work, combined with the preclinical data, could greatly contribute to accelerating the availability of a new treatment for PD.