The heart in Leber's optic atrophy.

Abstract

Patients with Leber's optic atrophy may have diffuse neurological disease with involvement of systems other than the nervous system (Ferguson and Critchley, I928; Wilson, 1963; Bruyn and Went, I964; Adams, Blackwood, and Wilson, I966). These findings suggest that Leber's disease, although mainly affecting the optic nerves, is a multisystem disorder. Cardiac abnormalities have not been described in Leber's disease apart from an account of myocardial disease found post mortem in one patient (Wilson, I963). This paper reports the electrocardiographic changes found in two patients with Leber's disease.