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NEUROPSYCHIATRIC ASPECTS OF NEW VARIANT CJD
E.C.Johnstone. University of Edinburgh
This paper consists of a clinical description of 10 cases of new variant CJD described at the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh in 1996. I had the opportunity to peruse the case notes of all of these patients. Many of them were assessed by psychiatrists often early in their illness. The purpose of the paper is to provide a brief overview of the psychiatric features that they presented.
The rapid course of the illness in many of these cases is a striking feature and overall the picture presented would be unusual in psychiatric practice. Reasons for the psychiatric referral were explored—some cases could have been construed as depressive or other non-organic disorders for months before cognitive and neurological features became obvious, although others had organic features from early on. Taken as a whole, however, the clinical picture presented by these cases would not be one seen by psychiatrists until the 1990s. An exception to this general statement is presented.
VARIANT CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE
R.G. Will. The National CJD Surveillance Unit, Edinburgh
There is now compelling evidence that variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is caused by the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and it is thought that transmission of this cattle disease to humans was through BSE infection in food. As of February 2002 one hundred and fourteen cases of vCJD had been identified in the UK and statistical analysis has shown that the numbers of cases are increasing with time. It is likely that there was extensive exposure to the BSE agent in the human food chain, but there is uncertainty about the total future number of cases of vCJD because of many unknowns, including the mean duration of the incubation period of BSE in humans.
Variant CJD is also a cause for concern in other European countries because …