Clinical availability of skin biopsy in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease

To determine whether skin biopsy is practically useful in the premortem diagnosis for Parkinson's disease (PD), we examined Lewy pathology in the skin of the chest wall and leg, obtained from 6-mm punch biopsies, using phosphorylated α-synuclein antibody in 20 patients with clinically diagnosed PD. Abnormal accumulation of α-synuclein was found in the chest skin of two (10%) of 20 patients, but not in the leg. Although skin biopsy combined with a conventional immunohistochemistry for α-synuclein is not sufficient as a diagnostic tool, we could firstly demonstrate Lewy pathology in premortem tissue. The skin remains to be a promising tissue to be examined for the premortem diagnosis of PD.