Health care providers: Help
us effectively monitor for cases of TSE and perform follow-up
investigation on CJD cases with possible public health importance,
confirm clinical cases through arranging autopsies and clearly
indicate CJD diagnoses on death certificates.
Report all human cases of CJD or TSE to your local health
department.
A definitive
diagnosis of a TSE can only be made by neuropathological examination
of brain tissue obtained through biopsy or autopsy. Although
CJD may be suspected on the basis of clinical symptoms (see
Background) and the results
of other diagnostic tests (see How
is CJD diagnosed?), none are confirmatory and the diagnosis
is difficult to make. Because these diseases are rare and difficult
to diagnose, the CA Department of Public Health’s (CDPH)
surveillance case definition requires that the diagnosis of
CJD be made either by a neurologist or confirmed by biopsy or
autopsy.
If you are
unsure of the diagnosis (See background information for more
on epidemiology and diagnosis) you may want to consult a neurologist.
The UCSF Memory
and Aging Center is the only center with an ongoing treatment
trial for CJD.
Alert us for suspected vCJD or iatrogenic CJD:
Contact us by email, cjd@ceip.us. We are particularly interested
if you are caring for a CJD patient with any of the following:
• Younger than 55 years of age
• Suspected diagnosis of variant CJD (see WHO
vCJD diagnostic criteria)
• History of neurosurgical procedure or receiving cadaver-derived
human pituitary growth hormone, dura mater grafts, or corneal
grafts (Note: for these possible iatrogenic cases, your local
public health department must also be notified.)
• History of deer or elk meat consumption from states
endemic for chronic wasting disease among deer and elk (CO,
WY, NE, NM, IL, KS, NY, SD, UT, WI, or WV)
Arrange for an autopsy on all suspected CJD cases:
Confirming the histopathology diagnosis of CJD cases will improve
the specificity of these diagnoses and help better understand
this prion disease. The National
Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center (NPDPSC) can
assist in coordinating autopsies.
Clearly indicate the diagnoses of CJD on death certificates:
By having the CJD ICD-10 code A81.0 (or ICD-9 code 046.1) on
the death certificate, you will help improve our surveillance
efforts through mortality data review.
Return
to top of page
|