title: Classification of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease based on clinical and neuropathological characteristics.
abstract: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease of unknown cause. Patients are usually aged between 50 and 75 and typical clinical features include rapidly progressive dementia associated with myoclonus and a characteristic electroencephalographic pattern. Neuropathological examination reveals cortical spongiform change, hence the term 'spongiform encephalopathy'. Several statistical techniques were applied to classify patients with sporadic CJD (sCJD), based on clinical and neuropathological investigation. We focus on the classification of neuropathologically confirmed sCJD patients. In order to obtain a classification rule that correctly classifies this type of patients and at the same time controls the overall error rate, we apply several classification techniques, which in general, produce comparable results. The boosting method produces the best results and the variable 14-3-3 protein in cerebrospinal fluid plays the most important role in the prediction of neuropathologically confirmed sCJD.
authors.affiliation: Center for Statistics, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Gebouw D, Diepenbeek, Belgium. jose.cortinas@uhasselt.be
authors.forename: José Cortiñas
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Abrahantes
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aerts
authors.forename: Bart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: van Everbroeck
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Saegerman
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Berkvens
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Geys
authors.forename: Koen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mintiens
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roels
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cras
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001530:Belgium; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D007562:Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome / Q000145:classification* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D003704:Dementia / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012189:Retrospective Studies