NR ANKK
AU Moscrop,A.
TI Database proposed for patients possibly exposed to CJD
QU British Medical Journal 2001 Okt 20; 323: 889
PT news
VT
A confidential database has been proposed that would contain details of all patients who may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) through medical procedures. Proposals were put forward last week in a consultation paper from the CJD incidents panel, a group of experts set up last year by England's chief medical officer.
At a press briefing Dr Michael Banner, the panel's chairman, said the database would be used to assess whether people who may have been exposed to CJD in healthcare procedures go on to develop the disease. The panel's job was to devise mechanisms for use when a patient with CJD, or suspected of having CJD, is found to have undergone a medical procedure in the past.
Other patients may then be considered at risk because of the "unknown but possible risk that CJD could be transmitted through surgical instruments, donated blood, or other tissues or organs, from individuals who later develop CJD," according to Dr Banner.
Dr Banner admitted that the proposals had not been put before legal experts and that questions might arise as to the legality of holding information on patients. "The principles may not be feasible with legal restrictions," he said.
Andrew Moscrop BMJ
Management of Possible Exposure to CJD through Medical Procedures is accessible at www.doh.gov.uk/cjd/consultation/
SP englisch
PO England