Objective: Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) is characterized by major clinical disturbances caused by dopamine depletion in corpus striatum, resulting from neuronal loss in the substantia nigra. Dıfferent hypotheses involving genetic predisposition and environmental agents have been proposed to identify its cause but none of them fully explain the cascade of events responsible for IPD. Sialic acids are terminal sugar components of the oligosaccharide chains of glycoproteins and glycolipids, many of which represent important components of cell membranes. It may be suggested that the glycoprotein and glycolipid components of the cell membrane are affected during damage of neurons and as a result sialic acid levels may change. The objective of our study is to investigate the changes in serum total sialic acid in patients with IPD.

Material and Method: 39 patients with IPD and 35 age-matched healthy subjects were investigated in this study and total serum sialic acid levels were compared.

Result: There was no statistical significant difference between the total serum sialic acid levels of the patient group and the control group (p>0.05).