- Jeff -
-
- According to the "confusing" information below,
it appears that the brain disease was a prion disease however, it appears
to be a novel or mutated disease. I expect to hear nvCJD and BSE soon to
be suffixed with LIKE.
-
- It was unclear if the woman lived in Canada or the US.
I have to wonder how the funeral home will handle fluids, tissues etc etc.
Will any of the fludis, tissues be flushed into area sewer system, as is
the case with funeral parlors.
-
- We know that mad cow disease has become atypical or mutated
in bovine, therefore one can expect to hear a similar situation arise in
humans.
-
- It would be very helpful to know what meats the woman
consumed, such as deer or elk meat, or where the woman lived. Could she
have consumed the US/Canadian mad cow found in the US? We also do not know
about her travel background, i.e. had she visited Europe, the UK or other
BSE/nvCJD infected country.
-
- Hopefully, results will become available soon. I do think
that the autopsy should give us a clue as to area of the brain that became
spongified which would give us a clue as to which prion disease was closely
resembled.
-
- In any event, this news is not good.
-
- Patricia Doyle
-
- From ProMED-mail
-
-
- WA State - Woman Dies Of Mad Cow Type Disease
By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times
8-20-4
-
- A woman treated at Harborview Medical Center this summer
for a mysterious brain ailment related to mad cow disease [bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or the human form known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease]
has died. An autopsy was performed, and should help national experts in
their quest to identify the disease, said epidemiologist Dr Jo Hofmann,
of the Washington Department of Health. "There will be brain tissue
obtained from multiple parts of the brain, that will definitely provide
more information," Hofmann said. The tissue will be sent to the National
Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University
in Cleveland.
-
- The woman, who Hofmann said was under the age of 60,
was not a resident of Washington and did not die here. She has not been
identified to protect her family's privacy. She was treated at Harborview,
where doctors performed a brain biopsy, collecting a tiny sample of brain
tissue they hoped would help them diagnose the baffling illness, characterized
by dementia. When pathologists examined the brain tissue, they saw evidence
[neuropathology, immunoreactivity, presence of prions?] that the woman
was suffering from a prion disease, a class of fatal brain ailments that
include mad cow disease and its human form [variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
abbreviated in ProMED-mail as CJD (new var.) or vCJD].
-
- Experts ruled out mad cow disease, and a similar disorder
called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but they were not able to make a definitive
diagnosis, partly because the tissue sample was so tiny. "We did all
we could, but you can't carry out all the tests on a biopsy," said
Dr Pierluigi Gambetti, director of the national prion center.
-
- So far, Gambetti said, he's pretty sure it's a prion
disease, named for the misshapen proteins that cause the formation of holes
in victims' brains. But the tissues didn't match any of the known prion
diseases. "It could be something new," Gambetti said. "This
is always a possibility."
-
- "In general, larger tissue samples allow scientists
to conduct tests on different brain regions," said Dr Tom Montine,
chief of neuropathology at Harborview. "The brain is unlike any other
organ in the body in that function is highly localized," he said in
an email. "This means that small lesions in different parts of the
brain can have very different clinical outcomes." It probably will
be several weeks or longer before all the tests are conducted.
-
- Harborview is waiting for the results before deciding
whether to notify 12 patients who had brain surgery after the sick woman;
but before the hospital super-sterilized the surgical instruments used
on her. Laboratory tests have shown that ordinary sterilization is not
always enough to destroy prions. In very rare cases, prion diseases have
been transmitted by contaminated medical equipment.
-
- http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgibin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=200201
0596&zsection_id=2001780260&slug=braindeath20m&date=20040820
-
-
- ProMED-mail promed@promedmail.org
-
- [This report is too vague and preliminary to evaluate.
The basis for the conclusion that the disease is vCJD/BSE-like, but neither
vCJD nor (sporadic) CJD, is unclear to the moderator. Examination of the
biopsy material may establish whether a prion is present which resembles
any of the 4 common PRP/Sc types found in humans to date: types 1-3 in
sporadic and iatrogenic CJD, and type 4 associated exclusively with vCJD.
A proper scientific account of this case is awaited. - Mod.CP]
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?
- Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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