Endoscopy and CJD risk?

[Min75]

I am due to be having an endoscopy (gastroscopy and Transnasal), so I was reading up about the procedure for information in order to prepare myself and feel less worried. I had begun to feel much more confident having read the official information eg. the NHS website and hospital's own information sheet. Having posted on this site and reading other people's experiences of the procedure itself was also very reassuring.

However, I then came across an article on the risks, which states that there is a risk of CJD and VCJD from endoscopy and having read this article, I am feeling petrified again. The risks of contamination by someone incubating CJD and VCJD and then transmitted this to the next patient are said to be very low, but the official literature sent to me by the hospital does not even mention this risk. The article I read states that CJD prions are resistant to all forms of sterilisation, so there is a small risk of passing on CJD from a person incubating the disease to the next patient.

Is there anyone on here who has any knowledge about this, like a doctor or a nurse who works with endoscopy for example, who can shed some light on this? I have left a voice message with the endoscopy department at the hospital, so hopefully I can also find out more from them, although there isn't any mention of this particular risk on their information leaflet. In the meantime if anyone has any insight into this, please let me know.

Thank you in advance for your help.

You're panicking about nothing. The odds are incredibly low. So low it's not worth informing you about it. How many people even have this now? And are unsymptomatic? And have had a recent endoscopy at the hospital you are attending?

Do you overreact to everything, because this is really long odds!

Depending on one's age, a person is probably far more at risk from previously consumed contaminated meat products (80s- mid 90s), what's known as "silently infected". Even then the risk and numbers of people who might become symptomatic are relatively small.

The risk is very minimal in terms of CJD and vCJD. My trust have checklists that have to be filled out for every patient undergoing an endoscopic procedure.
These include whether the patient has/high risk of having CJD/vCJD. If they are identified as having or at high risk of having then single use equipment is used as far as is possible, and what isn't single that is used is either destroyed or quarantined. I can't remember how long the quarantine is for as it's been a few years since I've worked in endoscopy.

Hope your procedure goes well.

Diagnosis of vCJD is now unbelievably rare. There hasn't been a case diagnosed in the UK since 2016 and only 2 since 2012. Peak diagnosis was 1996-2003.

CJD related to medical intervention is also incredibly rare, again usually 1 or 0 cases a year in the whole of the UK.

I suspect your patient information doesn't mention it because it is simply irrelevant to endoscopy.

What's the alternative though - not having a procedure that you really need to have?

I had a blood tranfusion ten years ago. I now can't give blood - apparently because of CJD risk. But it is incredibly rare, and it was that or no transfusion... and I needed it badly.