Preserved cardiac sympathetic nerve accounts for normal cardiac uptake of MIBG in PARK2

Abstract

We performed [123I] MIBG myocardial scintigraphy in two of three patients with PARK2 from unrelated families and examined the heart tissues from the three patients immunohistochemically using an antibody against tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) to see whether cardiac sympathetic nerve is involved. Cardiac uptake of MIBG was normal except for a slight decrease in the late phase in one of the patients. Postmortem examination revealed that TH-immunoreactive nerve fibers in the epicardium were well preserved in all three patients. The present study confirmed that cardiac sympathetic nerve is well preserved in PARK2 with a homozygous exon deletion, which accounts for normal cardiac uptake of MIBG. Moreover, normal cardiac uptake of MIBG might be of potential diagnostic value to indicate the absence of Lewy body pathology, even in patients with levodopa-responsive Parkinsonism, as in PARK2.