[HiTech RedNeck]

The docs at Mayo clinic probably would've missed it first time around.

Is it something that a brain scan would see? I thought that was a fairly standard thing done with young patients suffering from this kind of dementia.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

They don't tote a lot of brain scanning equipment around with them when they deploy to places like Iraq.

[LibWhacker]

That's a good question. I don't know. But my doctor wife told me once that when you do a diagnosis, you list all the things it (the disease) could be in order of probability down to a probability of about one percent. So, if that's the gold standard, I don't think there's any way they would've caught this first time.

However, these are post-exam probabilities, conditioned on what they see in the exam. So if it would show up on a brain scan, and that's routinely done in cases like this, then the probabilities completely change and perhaps it should've been caught.

Didn't consider that possibility. Good point.

[Polybius]

The docs at Mayo clinic probably would've missed it first time around.....LibWhacker

Is it something that a brain scan would see?......HiTech RedNeck

Nope. Diagnosis requires a brain biopsy.........or an autopsy.

See my Post 43.

Here is more information:

The only way to confirm a diagnosis of CJD is by brain biopsy or autopsy. In a brain biopsy, a neurosurgeon removes a small piece of tissue from the patient’s brain so that it can be examined by a neuropathologist. This procedure may be dangerous for the patient, and the operation does not always obtain tissue from the affected part of the brain. Because a correct diagnosis of CJD does not help the patient, a brain biopsy is discouraged unless it is needed to rule out a treatable disorder. In an autopsy, the whole brain is examined after death. Both brain biopsy and autopsy pose a small, but definite, risk that the surgeon or others who handle the brain tissue may become accidentally infected by self-inoculation.

[Quix]

Sounds like he certainly should have had AT LEAST an MRI and probably a PET scan

a LOT sooner than he evidently did.

Any serious alteration from normal behavior deserves a very serious exploration and examination leaving no stones unturned--especially in such a military context.