Background Abstract Inflammation appears to play a role in the progression of neurodegenerative diseases. However, little is known about inflammation during early stages of cognitive decline or whether this differs in different disease groups. We sought to investigate this by assessing the inflammatory profile in patients with Parkinson’s disease with the early stages of cognitive impairment (PD-MCI), patients with prodromal Alzheimer’s disease (MCI-AD), prodromal Lewy Body disease (MCI-LB) and controls. Methods We obtained venous blood samples from participants with PD-MCI (n = 44), PD-normal cognition (n = 112) MCI-LB (n = 38), MCI-AD (n = 21) and controls (n = 84). We measured 10 cytokines using Meso Scale Discovery V-Plex Plus including interferon-gamma, interleukin (IL)-10, IL-12p70, IL-13, IL-1beta, IL- 2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8 and tumour necrosis factor alpha. High-sensitivity C–reactive protein was measured. Results There was a higher level of inflammation in patients with MCI-AD and MCI-LB compared with controls. PD non-cognitively impaired had higher inflammatory markers than controls but there was no difference between PD-MCI and controls. There was a decrease in inflammatory markers with increasing motor severity based on the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale. Conclusions Inflammation may be involved in the onset of cognitive decline in patients with MCI-AD and MCI-LB but appears to be less prominent PD-MCI albeit in a small data set. This suggests that anti- inflammatory medications may have most benefit at the earliest stages of neurodegenerative diseases. For PD cases, this might be in advance of the development of MCI.