• CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE
• PRION

Compassionate use of doxycycline, a tetracycline antibiotic, in patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) revealed an increased survival of 4–7 months as compared with historical controls, a result not confirmed by a randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled trial.1 Is then therapy with doxycycline for patients with CJD over? The report of Assar et al2 on a single patient with variably protease-sensitive prionopathy (VPSPr),3 a rare subtype form of sporadic CJD, who received 4-year treatment with doxycycline at a relatively early stage of disease, suggests it is not and encourages novel studies on the use of doxycycline in prion diseases. The patient, who carried the commonly VPSPr-associated valine homozygosity …