Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: A Retrospective Analysis of 104 Cases

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) is an extremely rare fatal and infectious neurodegenerative brain disorder characterized by rapidly progressive dementia, cerebellar ataxia, and visual disturbances. This article summarizes the retrospective analysis of 104 sCJD patients in the First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital from 2003 to 2019.

A retrospective analysis of the medical records of the 104 patients diagnosed with sCJD was performed from the aspects of demographic data, clinical manifestations, laboratory examinations, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, electroencephalograms (EEGs), diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) scans, positron emission tomography (PET) scans, and prion protein gene mutations.

In the 104 sCJD patients, pathological evidence of a spongiform change was found in 11 patients, while the remaining 93 patients were probable sCJD. The 104 patients included 57 males and 47 females, with the age of onset ranging from 29 to 82 (mean: 58, median: 60) years. The time from disease onset to death ranged from 1 to 36 months. Most of the patients died 7-12 months after the onset of sCJD. In most patients, rapidly progressive dementia appeared as the initial symptom, followed by cerebellar ataxia, visual disturbances, and neurobehavioral disorders. Most patients' DWI images showed symmetric or asymmetric hyperintensity in the cortex. In terms of EEGs, 38.2% of the patients had periodic sharp wave complexes. The sensitivity of 14-3-3 protein detection was 34.1%. The brain PET scans of 50 patients with sCJD presented 96% sensitivity for the diagnosis of sCJD.

This study indicated that sCJD occurred at an early age in patients in China. The sensitivity of 14-3-3 protein detection was significantly low, but brain PET was highly sensitive in the diagnosis of sCJD.