The diagnosis of human prion diseases.

Prion diseases present a wide spectrum of clinical and neuropathological features. In this review, clinical and neuropathological findings are summarized along with criteria for the diagnosis of the molecular-phenotypic subtypes of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), familial CJD, new variant CJD, iatrogenic CJD, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease, fatal familial insomnia and kuru.