Basics
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Summary
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, degenerative brain disorder. Symptoms usually start around age 60. Memory problems, behavior changes, vision problems, and poor muscle coordination progress quickly to dementia, coma, and death. Most patients die within a year.
The three main categories of CJD are :
- Sporadic CJD, which occurs for no known reason
- Hereditary CJD, which runs in families
- Acquired CJD, which occurs from contact with infected tissue, usually during a medical procedure
Cattle can get a disease related to CJD called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad cow disease." There is concern that people can get a variant of CJD from eating beef from an infected animal, but there is no direct proof to support this.
NIH: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Diagnosis and Tests
- Diagnosing Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: Accuracy of CSF 14-3-3 Protein Test of the Spinal Fluid (American Academy of Neurology) - PDF
Related Issues
- Information for People Treated with Pituitary Human Growth Hormone (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)
- Kuru (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)
- Relationship with BSE (Mad Cow Disease) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
- Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD): Risk for Travelers (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Specifics
- Frequently Asked Questions on BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or Mad Cow Disease) (Department of Agriculture) - PDF
- Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Genetics
- Prion disease: MedlinePlus Genetics (National Library of Medicine)
Statistics and Research
- Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
- Prion Diseases (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
Clinical Trials
- ClinicalTrials.gov: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome (National Institutes of Health)
- ClinicalTrials.gov: Prion Diseases (National Institutes of Health)
Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)
- Article: Novel method for classification of prion diseases by detecting PrP(res) signal...
- Article: Detection of prions in matching post-mortem skin and cerebrospinal fluid samples...
- Article: New Light on Prions: Putative Role of PrP(c) in Pathophysiology of...
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease -- see more articles
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Patient Handouts
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish