BMJ 1996;312:844 (30 March)

Letters

Magnetic resonance imaging is not a sensitive test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

EDITOR,--Terence Featherstone asks whether the prevalence of signal abnormalities in the basal ganglia seen on magnetic resonance imaging in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is being studied.1 We have been conducting systematic surveillance of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Britain since 1990 and have collected data, including reports of magnetic resonance imaging, on 256 definite and probable cases (as defined by Masters et al2). We are also currently involved in a study to ascertain radiological and pathological correlations, using postmortem magnetic resonance imaging of the brain before histological processing.

Ninety six people are known to have undergone magnetic resonance imaging of the brain during their illness. Of these, eight had iatrogenic and four familial disease. Only four patients (all with histologically confirmed disease; three sporadic cases and one related to treatment with growth hormone) were reported to have high signal abnormalities of the basal ganglia on imaging. The remainder of the scans were either . . . [Full text of this article]


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