[Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, experience in 17 patients].

BACKGROUND

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a prion affection that typically produces a rapidly progressive dementia with different neurologic and extra-neurologic manifestations.

AIM: To characterize clinical, imaging and electroencephalography findings in patients with a probable CJD.

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

A case series study of patients admitted in the Neurology department at a public hospital, between 2014 and 2019. Demographic, clinical, imaging, and electroencephalographic data of patients with probable CJD were analyzed.

RESULTS

Seventeen patients aged 63 ± 11 years (53% women) with a probable CJD were gathered. The incidence was 4.7 cases/year per million inhabitants. Twenty four percent of patients had a family history of CJD. The median time between the onset of symptoms and the hospital admission was three months with a survival of four months. The most common clinical manifestations were an amnesic syndrome in 88%, myoclonus in 76%, frontal syndrome and ataxia in 71%. Brain MRI was abnormal in all patients. The preponderant finding was the involvement of the caudate nucleus in 82% of cases. In the EEG, 94% of patients had abnormalities. All had a theta-delta slowing as a base rhythm. The pseudo-periodic pattern was observed in the 29% and status epilepticus in 18%.

CONCLUSIONS

In this group of patients we observed the heterogeneity of the clinical manifestations of the disease, the frequent imaging and electroencephalographic alterations and the short evolution time leading to death.