A national laboratory in Chantilly, Va., confirmed a preliminary diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease following a Feb. 15 diagnostic lumbar puncture of a patient at Washington Regional Medical Center.
The hospital received the preliminary lab results Tuesday. Washington Regional leaders shut down all operating rooms, conducted a thorough sterilization and replaced some surgical instruments after learning of the preliminary results.
The operating rooms have since reopened.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob is a degenerative brain disease, occurring worldwide at a rate of about one person per million worldwide for reasons that are usually unknown. The patient in Fayetteville did not have the variant known popularly as “mad cow disease.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports there has not been a reported case of the disease transmitted by surgical instruments since 1976, thanks to the widespread adoption of modern surgical sterilization techniques by the nation’s hospitals.
Washington Regional officials state they have used those sterilization techniques as standard procedure for all operations for 40 years.