Clinical usefulness of immunohistochemistry for plakoglobin, N-cadherin, and connexin-43 in the diagnosis of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy.

Clinical usefulness of immunohistochemistry for plakoglobin, N-cadherin, and connexin-43 in the diagnosis of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. Int J Clin Exp Pathol. 2013;6(12):2928-35 Authors: Kwon YS, Park TI, Cho Y, Bae MH, Kim S Abstract Diagnosing arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) is often challenging because no single diagnostic tool is available to detect the disease. We evaluated whether analysis of plakoglobin, N-cadherin, and connexin-43 immunoreactivity can be used as a significant test in diagnosis of ARVC. We selected subjects with suspicion of ARVC (n=22) in patients who underwent endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) in Kyungpook National University Hospital (n=1326). The patients (n=22) were classified into definite ARVC patients (n=17) and borderline ARVC (n=5). We selected control subjects (n=20) who were autopsied and died of non-cardiac disease. Hematoxylin-eosin, Masson's trichrome, and immunohistochemical stains for plakoglobin, N-cadherin, and connexin-43 were used for all specimens. Reduced immunoreactivity of plakoglobin was observed in 13 (76%) of the 17 patients with a definite ARVC and in 4 (80%) of the 5 patients with a borderline ARVC. All subjects displayed no significant reduction of the immunoreactivity for connexin-43 as well as for N-cadherin. Our investigation revealed that the immunohistochemical analysis for plakoglobin had an accuracy of 81%, 76% sensitivity, and 84% specificity ...
Source: International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Pathology - Category: Pathology Authors: Tags: Int J Clin Exp Pathol Source Type: research