Sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease: MRI Diagnosis, Cortical Ribboning, Pulvinar Sign, DWI, RT-QuIC, and AI
When Rapidly Progressive Dementia Is Not Alzheimer’s Disease A patient in her early sixties develops progressive memory impairment. At first, the symptoms seem compatible with a common neurodegenerative dementia. Several months later, however, the clinical picture becomes increasingly unusual: gait instability, dysphagia, behavioral changes, reduced speech, abnormal eye movements, and rapidly worsening cognitive function. The brain CT may appear almost normal. This is the moment when the diagnostic strategy must change. In a patient with rapidly progressive dementia , the combination of cognitive decline and rapidly accumulating neurological deficits should immediately broaden the differential diagnosis beyond Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia. One of the most important diagnoses to consider is sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (sCJD) , a rapidly progressive and fatal prion disease. The case presented in the accompanying material illustrates this diagnostic challenge particula...
