CT perfusion for confirmation of brain death.

SUMMARY: For pronouncing brain death, unlike CTP, the 2-phase CTA gives no functional information and is limited by inadvertent delay of the second acquisition, which may give false-negative results. The purpose of our study was to compare CTP and CTA derived from the CTP data with the Dupas and Frampas criteria for confirmation of brain death. A retrospective review of CTP in 11 consecutive patients for confirmation of brain death showed a sensitivity of 72.7% for 7- and 4-point scores, 81.8% for opacification of the ICV, and 100% for CTP scores in the brain stem. CTA obtained from the CTP data showed similar sensitivity in the diagnosis of brain death. This protocol also reduces the iodinated contrast dose and is less operator-dependent. The addition of the functional tools of CTP increased the sensitivity of CTA in the confirmation of brain death.