Summary

• Study director: Michael Geschwind, MD, PhD
• Sponsor: National Institutes of Health
• Recruiting?: Yes
• Official study title: Early Diagnosis of Human Prion Disease
• Conditions studied: Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and rapidly progressive dementias
• Purpose: The primary goal of this study is to develop and test methods for differentiating Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) from other diseases and to learn how to diagnose CJD as early as possible. A secondary goal of this study is to learn more about how CJD and other rapid neurological conditions progress by studying these diseases in each patient over time. Because CJD is a rare condition and very rapidly progressive, diagnosis of the disease is often made very late in the illness. If any future treatments for CJD are to be successful, they likely will need to be given to patients as early as possible, before the disease progresses too far. It is therefore important that we learn how to make an accurate diagnosis earlier.

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