October 1, 2004, Surgery patients at risk of brain disease

Turning once again to the Waaaaay Back Machine for some old but interesting and relevant news;

October 1, 2004
Surgery patients at risk of brain disease

Hundreds of patients at an Atlanta hospital may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which causes brain degeneration, officials say.

Dr. Allan Levey, chairman of neurology at Emory University Hospital, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the chance of transmission from a patient who tested positive for Creutzfeldt-Jakob after a brain biopsy is very small. But he said the hospital cannot guarantee that it is zero.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a cousin of mad cow disease, is always fatal. The disease is believed to have been transmitted to four victims worldwide from contaminated surgical instruments.

The disease has not been confirmed in the original patient, pending more testing.

The hospital notified 98 patients who had brain or nerve surgery in late September of the problem, along with 427 patients who had other types of surgery and are at lower risk.

Officials said the hospital has increased the length of time surgical instruments are sterilized from four to 14 minutes.

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