Early identification of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

BMJ 1998;316:563-564 ( 21 February )

Editorials

Early identification of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Some promising approaches but no clear answers yet

See pp 577, 593

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Unequivocal evidence now exists that the variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is caused by the same strain of agent asbovine spongiform encephalopathy and that this strain differsfrom other strains isolated from cases of classic sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakobdisease. ¹ ² At present definitive diagnosis of either formof the disease is possible only after death, but clinicians areunder great pressure to distinguish between the two forms andin particular to be able to identify cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakobdisease as early as possible.

Exposure of the human population in Britain to the agent causing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is likely to have occurredin the 1980s through beef products affected by bovine spongiformencephalopathy. Although it is reassuring that there have beenonly 24 cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (23 in Britainand 1 in France) and that the number of new cases did not increasein the last year, it is impossible to . . . [Full text of this article]

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