TY - JOUR TI - Can mortality data provide reliable indicators for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance? A study in France from 2000 to 2008 AU - Brandel, Jean-Philippe AU - Welaratne, Arlette AU - Salomon, Dominique AU - Capek, Isabelle AU - Vaillant, Véronique AU - Aouba, Albertine AU - Aouaba, Albertine AU - Haïk, Stéphane AU - Alpérovitch, Annick T2 - Neuroepidemiology AB - BACKGROUND: Surveillance of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is still an important issue because of the variant CJD epidemic, which is in decline and also because of the emergence of novel forms of animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy with zoonotic potential and the risk of nosocomial and blood transfusion-related transmission. Active surveillance has been implemented in most European countries and requires important human resources and funding. Here, we studied whether national mortality and morbidity statistics can be used as reliable indicators. METHODS: CJD data collected by the French national CJD surveillance centre were compared with data registered in the national mortality statistics. RESULTS: From 2000 to 2008, the two sources reported fairly similar numbers of CJD deaths. However, analysis of individual data showed important between-sources disagreement. Nearly 24% of CJD reported by the mortality register were false-positive diagnoses and 21.6% of the CJD cases diagnosed by the surveillance centre were not registered as CJD in the national mortality statistics. One out of 22 variant CJD cases was not reported as having any type of CJD in the mortality statistics. CONCLUSIONS: These findings raise doubt about the possibility of a reliable CJD surveillance only based on mortality data. DA - 2011/// PY - 2011 DO - 10.1159/000332764 DP - NCBI PubMed VL - 37 IS - 3-4 SP - 188 EP - 192 J2 - Neuroepidemiology LA - eng SN - 1423-0208 ST - Can mortality data provide reliable indicators for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance? KW - Aged KW - Aged, 80 and over KW - Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome KW - Diagnostic Errors KW - Female KW - France KW - Humans KW - Male KW - Middle Aged KW - Population Surveillance KW - Registries KW - Reproducibility of Results ER -