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A 79-year-old woman had come to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital for a brain biopsy on Monday, an infectious-disease expert said during a news conference Thursday afternoon.
The hospital learned Thursday morning that test results from another facility indicated she could have Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, G. Richard Olds of the Medical College of Wisconsin said.
The degenerative brain ailment can be passed on by surgical instruments even after they have been sterilized by normal means.
The hospital said in a statement the patient had a very small potential for the disease. But instruments used during the biopsy were mixed with others during sterilization, so officials resterilized all surgical instruments used since Monday as a precaution. The instruments were treated in bleach and then sterilized again using the hospital’s normal procedure.
“The likelihood of this is extremely low,” hospital spokeswoman Kathy Sieja said. “We are taking these steps as a cautious measure.”
The 450-bed hospital in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa also contacted the 100 or so patients who have had surgeries since Monday, Sieja said. She said she didn’t know how many surgeries had been canceled, but said the hospital typically has about 50 per day. The hospital was still performing emergency and trauma surgeries, she said.
Hospital spokeswoman Kim Wick said surgeries resumed at 6 p.m. Thursday.
“I haven’t heard if anyone called and canceled surgeries for (Friday),” she said.
Classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is not related to mad-cow disease, or variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, according to the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But it progresses quickly and is always fatal.
Olds, who did not work with the patient in question, said if she did have CJD, then anyone who had surgery since Monday may be at risk. But, he said, “If the risk is there, it is a very small risk.”
More test results showing whether the patient has CJD are expected by early next week, he said.
Sieja would not say whether the biopsy patient was still at the hospital or had been told of the test results. Neither she nor Olds would comment on where the testing that showed possible CJD was done.
Classic CJD occurs sporadically, appearing in about one in 1 million people per year, according to the CDC. That’s about 200 people annually in the U.S., according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Wisconsin has about six such cases a year, said Karen Timberlake, deputy secretary for the state’s Department of Health and Family Services.
The disease begins with neurological symptoms, such as memory loss, Olds said. It is a rare, hereditary mutation.
“It’s like lightning striking,” he said.
