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Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Case contributed by Maxime St-Amant
Diagnosis certain

Presentation

Headaches and memory loss in a young patient.

Patient Data

Age: 45 years
Gender: Male
mri

MRI shows subtle abnormal signal intensity in the basal ganglion, particularly evident within the caudate nucleus.

The basal ganglia are hyperintense on DWI (not shown, but hypointense on ADC) & slightly hyperintense on T2. As mentioned previously, this is more evident with regard to the caudate nucleus. There is no abnormal cortical signal or diffusion restriction. 

Case Discussion

There is a broad differential diagnosis for T2 basal ganglia hyperintensities.

However, the diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob was confirmed a few weeks after the MRI was done. DWI is the most sensitive sequence for this disease.

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