Experimental Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Transmitted via the Eye with Infected Cornea

Abstract

Scrapie of sheep, transmissible mink encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and kuru of man constitute the nosologic group of subacute spongiform virus encephalopathies.1 The possible transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from person to person has been reported in a 55-year-old man in whom the disease developed 18 months after he received a corneal transplant from a donor who had died of a neurologic disorder later diagnosed as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.2 In 1974 infectivity was demonstrated in corneal tissues of hamsters dying of transmissible mink encephalopathy. After injection of infected corneal epithelium intracerebrally into healthy hamsters the disease developed.3 Successful transmission from a woman . . .