A Rare Case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in an 80-Year-Old Male.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, rapid and fatal human prion disease that causes neurodegeneration. Rapidly progressive dementia, quick involuntary muscle jerking and specific radiographic and laboratory findings are characteristic of the disease. CJD should not be ruled even if the clinical presentation is outside the common age range.

Primary Angiitis of the Center Nervous System: A Clinical Challenge Diagnosed Postmortem.

Primary angiitis of the central nervous system (PACNS) is a rare vasculitis involving medium and small blood vessels of the brain, spinal cord, and meninges, without systemic involvement. The diffuse and patchy nature of its pathology is reflected by a wide spectrum of nonspecific clinical symptoms. Diagnosis is challenging due to lack of defined clinical criteria or specific imaging findings.

Headache rate and cost of care following lumbar puncture at a single tertiary care hospital.

Background: American Academy of Neurology guidelines recommend the use of noncutting needles because of lower rates of headache following lumbar puncture in randomized trials. We sought to determine the rate of headache using cutting needles and the potential cost savings of switching to noncutting needles.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the charts of all patients who had a lumbar puncture in the outpatient neurology clinic at a single institution between January 2004 and December 2005.

Mercury inhibition of neutrophil activity: evidence of aberrant cellular signalling and incoherent cellular metabolism.

Exposure to environmental heavy metals has been reported to affect the immune system. Here, we tested the hypothesis that Hg(+2), acting through membrane proteins, disrupts metabolic dynamics and downstream cell functions in human neutrophils. We found that HgCl(2) inhibited: (1) polarization and (2) immunoglobulin (Ig)G-mediated phagocytosis of sheep erythrocytes in a dose-dependent manner from 2.

Mercuric chloride damages cellular DNA by a non-apoptotic mechanism.

Mercury is a xenobiotic metal that is well known to adversely affect the immune system, however, little is known as to the molecular mechanism. Recently, it has been suggested that mercury may induce immune dysfunction by triggering apoptosis in immune cells. Here, we studied the effects of Hg(2+) (HgCl(2)) on U-937 cells, a human cell line with monocytic characteristics.