The brother of a man with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) has launched a legal action at the Court of Protection in London to try to get his treatment with pentosan polysulphate reinstated after his infusion pump malfunctioned.

The patient, named only as AVS, was given a diagnosis of CJD in May 2008 and a prognosis of only three or four weeks of life, according to papers filed with the court by his brother, CS. But he is still alive two and half years later, after being given pentosan polysulphate from June 2008 until the pump failed in August 2010.

DH, the consultant neurologist at an …