Latrogenic and zoonotic Creutzfeldt-jakob disease: The Australian perspective

Abstract

The transmissible brain diseases of humans and animals, the spongiform encephalopathies, continue to stimulate interest, and the announcement that exposure to 'mad cow disease' (bovine spongiform encephalopathy [BSE]) is a possible explanation for more than 10 cases of a variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans in the United Kingdom is a recent example. Cases of iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (from previous use of human cadaveric tissues for pituitary hormone therapy and neurosurgical grafts) are still being identified, and the unique nosological status of this group of disorders - that they are both transmissible and inherited and that the only known component of their infectious a..