Services d’autopsie pour la maladie de Creutzfeldt-Jakob

Prion diseases are rare, untreatable, lethal degenerative brain disorders of humans and animals. Human prion diseases, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), evoke public health concern because of their infectious nature. In keeping with its responsibilities for national surveillance, prevention and control of infectious diseases, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) operates the Canadian CJD Surveillance System (CJDSS) with a program mandate to identify and diagnose all suspected cases of CJD in Canada, understand their causes, and continuously assess associated risks to public health. Because definitive diagnosis of CJD requires post mortem pathological examination of the brain, the CJDSS requires specialized laboratory services to conduct cranial autopsies, in which brain tissue is retrieved from patients suspected to have CJD and submitted to pathological examination.