Letters to the editor
New variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease presenting with loss of taste and smell
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Abnormalities of smell and taste have been described in some neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's dementia, idiopathic Parkinson's disease, Huntington's chorea, Korsakoff's syndrome, Pick's disease, the parkinsonian dementia complex of Guam, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.1 Hyposmia and hypogeusia are a feature of normal aging but they have not been recorded as a prominent early feature in previous reports of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).2-5 We describe a patient with vCJD whose first symptoms included deficits of taste and smell.
At the time of his initial neurological assessment, this 54 year old
ceramic tiler had a 12 month history of loss of taste and smell,
anxiety, low mood, and unusually short temper. He first became aware
that something was wrong when he lost the ability to differentiate the
taste of tea from that of beer. Loss of taste and personality change
progressed gradually. He began to crave vanilla ice cream although he
had never liked
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
DeJoia, C., Moreaux, B., O'Connell, K., Bessen, R. A.
(2006). Prion Infection of Oral and Nasal Mucosa. J. Virol.
80: 4546-4556
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Grisold, W., Nussgruber, V.
(2004). Comments on Neurological Aspects of Taste Disorders. Arch Neurol
61: 297-298
[Full Text] -
PORTER, S. R.
(2003). Prion disease: Possible implications for oral health care. Journal of the American Dental Association
134: 1486-1491
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Heckmann, J. G., Heckmann, S. M., Lang, C. J. G., Hummel, T.
(2003). Neurological Aspects of Taste Disorders. Arch Neurol
60: 667-671
[Full Text] -
Zanusso, G., Ferrari, S., Cardone, F., Zampieri, P., Gelati, M., Fiorini, M., Farinazzo, A., Gardiman, M., Cavallaro, T., Bentivoglio, M., Righetti, P. G., Pocchiari, M., Rizzuto, N., Monaco, S.
(2003). Detection of Pathologic Prion Protein in the Olfactory Epithelium in Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. NEJM
348: 711-719
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Porter, S. R
(2002). Prions and dentistry. JRSM
95: 178-181
[Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
