Case series of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in a third-level hospital in Quito

5Citations
Citations of this article
74Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Background: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder that affects mammals and humans. The prevalence of this disease in the United States is 0.5 to 1 per million inhabitants. So far in Ecuador, we do not know what the prevalence or incidence is, and only one case report has been written. Case presentation: We present a case series of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in a third-level hospital in Quito. The average age of symptom onset in our patients was 58.8 years. The male to female ratio was 1:1. Two patients began with cognitive/behavioral symptoms, while 4 patients began with focal neurological signs; 1 case with ataxia, 2 with gait disorders and 1 with vertigo and headache. All of the patients had the clinical features established by the World Health Organization. In addition, the entire cohort was positive for the 14-3-3 protein in cerebrospinal fluid, and had high signal abnormalities in caudate and putamen nucleus in DWI and FLAIR IRM. Only in one case, did we reach a definitive diagnosis through a pathological study. All other cases had a probable diagnosis. In this series of cases, 6 out of 6 patients died. The average time from the onset of the symptoms to death in this cohort was 13 months. Conclusion: This is the first report of a series of cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Quito. Although definitive diagnosis must be histopathological, there are ancillary tests currently available that have allowed us to obtain a diagnosis of the disease.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Torres Herrán, G. E., Ortega Herrera, A. D., Burbano, B. M., Serrano-Dueñas, M., Ortiz Yepez, M. A., Barrera Madera, R. A., … Correa Díaz, E. P. (2018). Case series of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in a third-level hospital in Quito. BMC Neurology, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-018-1061-0

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free