A responsive outcome for Parkinson's disease neuroprotection futility studies.

Futility studies are designed to test new treatments over a short period in a small number of subjects to determine if those treatments are worthy of larger and longer term studies, or if they should be abandoned. An appropriate outcome measure for a neuroprotection futility study in Parkinson's disease (sensitive to tracking disease progression in the short-term) has not been determined. Data sets from three clinical trials were used to compare Parkinson's disease outcome measures.