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Brain death: confirmation by radionuclide cerebral angiography
Y P Patel1, S M Gupta, R Batson
1Department of Nuclear Medicine, Danbury Hospital, Connecticut 06810.
Clinical Nuclear Medicine
|June 1, 1988
Summary
Dynamic radionuclide cerebral angiography effectively confirmed brain death in 10 of 14 patients by showing no intracranial arterial perfusion. This noninvasive method aids diagnosis in critically ill patients when other tests are difficult.
Area of Science:
- Neurology
- Nuclear Medicine
Background:
- Diagnosing brain death is critical in patients on life support.
- Conventional methods like EEG and contrast angiography can be impractical or inconclusive.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the utility of dynamic radionuclide cerebral angiography (DRCA) in confirming brain death.
- To assess DRCA as a noninvasive diagnostic tool.
Main Methods:
- DRCA was performed on 14 patients with suspected brain death.
- Intracranial arterial perfusion and venous drainage patterns were analyzed.
Main Results:
- 10 out of 14 patients showed no intracranial arterial perfusion, confirming brain death.
- Four patients had faint venous activity only in the sagittal sinus, and all eventually died.
- DRCA demonstrated absent cerebral circulation.
Conclusions:
- DRCA is a simple, noninvasive method for confirming brain death.
- It is particularly useful when EEG or contrast angiography are not feasible or yield equivocal results.
- The absence of arterial perfusion is a key indicator of brain death.