Fears of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have eased at a hospital in London, Ont., after preliminary test results on a patient came back negative for the fatal brain-wasting disease.

Results must still be confirmed by an independent lab in Ottawa, but doctors at the London Health Sciences Centre's University Hospital performed some surgeries on Thursday after a two-day suspension of surgical procedures.

Surgeries were cancelled Tuesday for fear patients might contract classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from instruments potentially contaminated by the suspected victim.

Since then, the hospital has purchased some new instruments and rescheduled some of its surgeries.

"In terms of patient safety, we're still being very cautious," said Dr. Michael John, the hospital's medical director of infection control. "We're going to keep the instruments quarantined until we're absolutely certain."

Limit contamination, scare with new system: expert

An expert on infectious diseases said new technologies could minimize the scope of such scares.

Shirley Paton of the Public Health Agency of Canada said some hospitals are now trying to track the use of medical instruments from patients to patients by using bar codes.

"This wouldn't have prevented the occurrence, but certainly could have limited the number of patients that were scared," said Paton.

She stresses that neurosurgeons need to be vigilant about the possibility that some patients might have CJD so hospital systems can be quickly engaged to prevent contamination.

In Canada, there are about 30 diagnosed cases of classic CJD every year. Classic CJD is the more common, sporadic of two types of CJD. Most classical CJD cases occur spontaneously for no apparent reasons. Sometimes the disease is hereditary and in less than one per cent of the time it is contracted through hospital or medical procedures.

The second type, variant CJD, is associated with mad cow disease.