Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound in Patients with Brain Death

Lee, Soo Hwan; Jeong, Dong Moon; Kim, Moo Seong; Lee, Won Hee; Kim, Seong Tae; Lee, Kun Soo; Paeng, Seong Hwa; Pyo, Se Yeong; Jeong, Yeong Gyun; Jung, Yong Tae; Jeong, Hae Woong; Kim, Yang Weon; Kim, Sang Jin

Original article

Journal of the Korean Society of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery 2012;8(2):74-78.
Published online September 30, 2012.

Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound in Patients with Brain Death

Soo Hwan Lee, Dong Moon Jeong, Moo Seong Kim, Won Hee Lee, Seong Tae Kim, Kun Soo Lee, Seong Hwa Paeng, Se Yeong Pyo, Yeong Gyun Jeong, Yong Tae Jung, Hae Woong Jeong, Yang Weon Kim, Sang Jin Kim

Abstract

Objective
To evaluate the usefulness of the transcranial doppler ultrasound in the brain death patients. Material and Methods: Transcranial doppler ultrasound was performed in 522 patients with the 522 brain death patients by use of the transcranial doppler ultrasound from January, 1996 to September, 2009. In all cases, transcranial doppler ultrasound patterns, velocity, pulsatility index were analysed.
Results
Male to female was 329 : 193, common ages were fifty : 127 cases, fourty : 121 cases, thirty : 112 cases, etc. Causes of the brain death were spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage 139 (26.6%), traumatic subdural hematoma 145 (27.8%), etc. The patterns of the brain death were reverberating flow, systolic peak wave, zero flow, velocity of the cerebral arteries was below 10cm/sec. pulsatility index over 2.5.
Conclusion
Transcranial doppler ultrasound is very useful noninvasive diagnostic method for brain death.

Key Words: Transcranial doppler ultrasound, Brain death.