Thursday, September 5, 2013
NH Hospital May Have Exposed Patients to CJD - MedPage Today
Health officials in New Hampshire said eight neurosurgery patients at one hospital in the state may have been unwittingly exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
The first patient underwent surgery at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, N.H., in May and died in August. The CJD diagnosis has not been confirmed, as detailed study of the patient's brain is still underway.
Officials said the eight patients exposed in the Manchester hospital had been notified, and that they had been told the risk of infection was extremely low.
Sporadic CJD is thought to arise from a spontaneous refolding of normal prion proteins into a disease-causing conformation within an individual's brain. The abnormally folded proteins then catalyze refolding of other normal prion proteins, eventually causing a lethal sponge-like encephalopathy. About 350 cases of sporadic CJD have been diagnosed annually in the U.S. in recent years, according to the CDC.
The sporadic form differs from so-called variant CJD, transmitted via ingestion of misfolded prion proteins from food animals such as beef cattle, and popularly referred to as mad cow disease.
John Gever, Senior Editor, has covered biomedicine and medical technology for 30 years. He holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan and an M.S. from Boston University. Now based in Pittsburgh, he is the daily assignment editor for MedPage Today as well as general factotum on the reporting side. Go Pirates/Penguins/Steelers!
Source : http://www.medpagetoday.com/Surgery/Neurosurgery/41405
