CJD 'breakthrough' examined

vCJD was thought to be irreversible

A new drug used to successfully treat a Briton thought to have the human form of BSE may undergo UK trials.

Scientists in America have given details of the drugs which have been used to treat a young English woman thought to have the disease.

Rachel Forber from Merseyside was given just a year to live when she was diagnosed with suspected CJD in June, but after treatment in America she showed significant improvement.

However, the US scientists said that a second patient given the drugs showed no signs of improvement.

A total of 99 people in the UK have died from variant CJD since the disease was first identified in 1996, and there is no known cure.

I think we will be having discussions with researchers here as soon as possible

Department of Health spokesman

A Department of Health spokesman said the government had been in touch with the American team and would consider funding research and setting up a clinical trial.

"That is certainly something that we would want to discuss with the researchers and the National CJD Surveillance Unit," he said.

"There are a lot of technical and ethical questions to get around, but we're determined to develop both a diagnostic test and a treatment for variant CJD.

"I think we will be having discussions with researchers here as soon as possible to see if we can take this forward."

Families informed

He added that the families of six other living British sufferers of the disease would be informed of the American treatment.

But he sounded a note of caution about the drugs involved, which are currently used to treat patients with malaria and psychosis.

"This is an untried, unproven and unlicensed treatment which could have harmful side effects," he said.

He said the patients and their clinicians would need to decide "whether it is appropriate for them".

Rachel Forber, 20, was confined to a wheelchair and unable to recognise her parents before she received treatment at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco.

Scientists have been searching for a cure for vCJD

But after 19 days of treatment the former soldier was able to walk unaided, use a knife and fork and complete co-ordination tests which she previously found impossible.

The US team was led by Professor Stanley Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel prize for medicine for his work on prions - the infectious protein agents thought to cause brain diseases such as BSE and CJD.

The drugs are quinacrine, used to treat malaria, and chlorpromazine, which is given to patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic conditions.

Tests on mice found that both prevented prion molecules from changing into the form linked with vCJD, which destroys the brain.

Critically, both are able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier - a natural "wall" put up by the body to stop toxic substances entering the brain.

A paper on the research will be published on Tuesday in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.