Evidence Mounts for Iatrogenic Alzheimer's Disease Transmission

5:04 AM ETDeveloping

Health Desk

In Short: A growing body of research suggests rare medical procedures may transmit Alzheimer's disease pathology.

Researchers at University College London (UCL) have found evidence that amyloid-beta pathology associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may be transmitted through certain medical procedures, such as childhood injections of cadaver-derived growth hormone (c-hGH), according to reports in Medscape.

A 2026 scoping review identified 94 published cases of possible iatrogenic cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), further narrowing the evidence gap.

In 2015, UCL researchers examined the brains of eight individuals who died from iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) after receiving c-hGH, finding amyloid-beta plaques and CAA consistent with iatrogenic transmission.

Lary Walker, PhD, an associate professor at Emory University, noted that while the 2024 cases were clinically complex, making a direct link to AD challenging, the evidence is mounting.

The possibility that iatrogenic amyloid-beta transmission might lead to AD itself gained attention in 2024, when the UCL group described eight additional c-hGH recipients, highlighting the need for further research and clinical guidance.

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When material from some of those batches was injected into genetically susceptible mice, it seeded amyloid-beta plaques and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) — “consistent with the hypothesized iatrogenic human transmission of amyloid-beta pathology,” they wrote in Nature.
The evidence gap narrowed in March 2026, when the UCL team published a case report of a c-hGH recipient with early-onset dementia, in whom postmortem examination showed “unequivocal” neuropathological features of AD, including severe tauopathy.
What evidence supports the existence of iatrogenic AD, what remains speculative, and how should clinicians discuss the findings with concerned patients?
Some preparations were inadvertently contaminated with prions that cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), leading to more than 200 cases of iatrogenic CJD among c-hGH recipients worldwide.

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