Intracranial Procedures and Expected Frequency of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: To assess the frequency and characteristics of intracranial procedures (ICPs) performed and the number of U.S. residents living with a history of ICP. These data are used to calculate the expected annual number of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) cases among U.S. residents with a history of ICP.

METHODS

The Nationwide Inpatient Sample provided data on the frequency and types of ICPs, and data from the National Center for Health Statistics was used to produce age-adjusted mortality rates. A model was constructed, which estimated long-term survival and sporadic CJD rates among ICP patients based on procedure type and age.

RESULTS

There were an estimated 2,070,488 ICPs in the United States from 1998 to 2007, an average of over 200,000 per year. There were an estimated 2,023,726 U.S. residents in 2013 with a history of ICP in the previous 30 years. In 2013, there was expected to be 4.1 sporadic CJD cases (95% CI 1-8) among people with a history of ICP in the past 30 years.

CONCLUSIONS

The considerable proportion of U.S. residents living with a history of ICP is important information for retrospective assessments of CJD or any other suspected long-term outcome of ICPs.