Usefulness of addition of CT perfusion to CT angiography for brain death diagnosis in a child

Abstract

CT perfusion is a new technique that is rapid, available and minimally invasive which provides functional vascular information and can be made after conventional CT and CT angiography at the same imaging session. CT perfusion applications have focused on ischemic stroke with only a short series of applications to brain death diagnosis. Instead, CT angiography is frequently performed as a confirmatory test of brain death, but it has not been completely validated yet. Hence CT perfusion may help in supporting the diagnosis of brain death. We present the case of a 12-year-old child with clinical criteria for brain death who required a confirmatory test. CT angiography and CT perfusion were performed. Both revealed the absence of any intracranial blood flow which supported the clinical diagnosis of brain death.