Developments in auxiliary examination of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Abstract

How to cite this article: Zhao W, Jiang JJ, Zhang JT. Developments in auxiliary examination of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Neuroimmunol Neuroinflammation 2017;4:136-44.Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which is caused by prion scrapie protein, is a rare, chronic, transmissible and fatal disease. Clinical manifestations of CJD include rapidly progressive dementia, cerebellar ataxia, visual disturbance, as well as pyramidal and extrapyramidal tract signs. Four subtypes of CJD have been reported, including sporadic, familial or genetic, iatrogenic and variant. Given the infectiousness and high mortality of the disease, it is imperative that earlier and more accurate diagnostic methods are developed. In the past years, 14-3-3 protein testing and periodic sharp wave complexes in electroencephalogram have been widely used in CJD clinical diagnosis; and the abnormal hyper-intensity in diffusion weighted imaging has also been used. Recently, there has been a focus on the diagnostic value of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography. New findings of potential biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid and decreases in diffusion tensor imaging measures have emerged as having an association with CJD. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy has also drawn attention as an emerging method for diagnosis. In this review, the progress in auxiliary examinations of CJD is discussed and the potential, future diagnostic methods are introduced. Key words:Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, 14-3-3 protein, electroencephalogram, diffusion weighted imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography Topic: Infectious Disease of Central Nervous SystemThis is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. For reprints contact: service@oaepublish.comOpen Access Zhao et al. Neuroimmunol Neuroinflammation 2017;4:136-44 DOI: 10.20517/23474:136-44 DOI: 10.20517/ -8659.2017