Neurosurgery Patients Notified of Possible Exposure to CJD

As many as 13 patients may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) while undergoing neurosurgery at a New Hampshire hospital, states a September 4, 2013, NBC News article. According to state health officials, the exposure may have occurred when the patients were operated on using surgical tools that were also used on a patient who died from what is believed to be sporadic CJD—the variant of the disease that is not caused from eating tainted beef. However, officials will not know if the cause of death was CJD or not until an autopsy is completed in approximately four weeks, as that is the only way to diagnose the disease with certainty.