Unsuccessful intraventricular pentosan polysulphate treatment of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Pentosan polysulphate, delivered by chronic intraventricular infusion, has been proposed as a potential therapy for human prion disease. The first treated patient is still alive several years after treatment started. Here we describe in detail a case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in which this treatment was started at a relatively early stage but had no definite clinical benefit. The patient died from disease progression 16 months after diagnosis and 5 months after pentosan polysulphate treatment was commenced.