Myocardial imaging with beta-methyl-p-(123I)-iodophenyl-pentadecanoic acid (123I-BMIPP), a new radiopharmaceutical designed to evaluate myocardial fatty acid metabolism, was performed in 7 patients with mitochondrial myopathy to detect their myocardial damages in comparison with 201Tl myocardial imaging. These patients were divided into 4 chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia (CPEO) cases, 2 mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) cases and 1 myoclonus epilepsy with ragged-red fibers (MERRF). In visual assessment, we observed more myocardial segments with decreased uptake of 123I-BMIPP compared to 201Tl in MELAS cases than in CPEO cases. The mean myocardial uptake of 123I-BMIPP was higher than that of 201Tl in CPEO cases. On the other hand, in MELAS and MERRF cases, the mean myocardial uptake of 123I-BMIPP was lower than that of 201Tl. Abnormal findings suggesting myocardial damages were observed in echocardiogram and/or in electrocardiogram in MELAS and MERRF cases, while no such abnormal findings were observed in CPEO cases. Along with the previously reported experimental result that the impairment of rat myocardial mitochondria decreased myocardial uptake of 125I-BMIPP, these results suggest that 123I-BMIPP may be useful to detect myocardial damages in patients with mitochondrial myopathy.