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A Practical Approach to Avoiding Iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) from Invasive Instruments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2015

Paul Brown  and
Michael Farrell
Paul Brown*
Affiliation:
National Institutes of Health (retired), Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Michael Farrell
Affiliation:
Neuropathology, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
*
Address all correspondence to Paul Brown, MD, 7815 Exeter Road, Bethesda, MD. (paulwbrown@comcast.net).
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Abstract

Potential Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease instrument-contamination events continue to occur, causing widespread hospital and patient concern. We propose the use of a combination of diagnostic tests (ie, spinal fluid for 14-3-3 protein or nasal brushing for misfolded prion protein) and instrument handling procedures (ie, using a regional set of dedicated instruments), which if applied to all patients admitted with symptoms of either dementia or cerebellar disease, should eliminate the risk of iatrogenic instrument infection.

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2015;36(7):844–848

Information

Type
Review Article
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 36 , Supplement 7 , July 2015 , pp. 844 - 848
Copyright
© 2015 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved 

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