Daily Mail, October 12, 2004
By Sarah Sims
MAD COWS DISEASE,
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease,
Test that can rule out mad cow fears.
The world's first test for the human form of mad cow disease has been developed
by British scientists and is set to be available to doctors next year.
Experts at the Manchester Royal Infirmary have invented a simple, painless heart test which takes just ten minutes to find out whether patients have the fatal brain-wasting condition, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, known as vCJD.
The breakthrough could offer peace of mind to 6,000 people in Britain who have been told that they may have contracted the deadly disease through a blood transfusion or receiving blood plasma products. The test would rule out the possibility that they had the disease.
Dr Chris Pomfrett has devised the heartbeat test which hospital doctors or
GPs can perform to discover if someone has vCJD up to five years before they
experience any symptoms.
The wireless belt device is strapped around the chest and works by measuring
the heartbeat 1,000 times a second for ten minutes, which experts then use to
look for the signature pattern of vCJD.
Dr Pomfrett says: `In each of the vCJD patients it worked 100 per cent as it picked up the same signature.
`If the test is as good as we believe it to be, then it could pick up the disease
in pre-
symptomatic patients. It would be the first test of its kind in the world and
it could offer people a lot of hope.
`As there is no cure at the moment, it would be wrong to screen huge numbers of the population when you can offer them nothing if they test positive. `So the test would be the most useful for those who have been told they are already at risk.'
At the moment, the only way doctors can diagnose vCJD is to surgically remove tissue from the tonsils or appendix when a patient is showing symptoms and all other possibilities have been eliminated.
`The advantage of the pioneering monitor is that a GP could keep testing someone at risk every six to 12 months to see if the disease has appeared.
Recent research has indicated that the disease can lie dormant for up to 40 years before symptoms show.
The test is being developed by TSEnse Diagnostics, and experts believe it could also help those at risk through contaminated blood stocks.
It would not only help to diagnose sufferers of the disease, it would also rule out many of the 6,000 people told that they may be at risk, and could also be used as a screening tool for anyone wanting to give blood.
The Department of Health issued the warning about contaminated blood after the first possible case of a person dying of vCJD after they had had a blood transfusion.
But even if a patient has been infected through a blood transfusion, there is still no way to diagnose the disease until it is so advanced that they are showing symptoms such as major psychological problems and being unable to walk properly.
