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Previous Volume 345:840-841 September 13, 2001 Number 11 Next

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To the Editor: Prusiner¹ and Roos² (May 17 issue) do not mention the spread of prions by contaminated surgical instruments. Since prions are not inactivated by the usual methods of sterilization, surgical procedures may account for some cases of sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.³ Responding to this concern, the United Kingdom Department of Health has mandated that all tonsillectomy procedures be carried out with single-use instruments and has identified other procedures in which single-use instruments must be used. Instruments should not be reused after use in a patient with known or suspected Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.

Since it is unrealistic to expect that all . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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