ABSTRACT

Although brain death was first described clinically near-ly 40 years ago, its definition, diagnosis and certification may be various in different centers. In a 7 years old child who had head trauma, the consultants decided that he had brain death after their first evaluation of brain stem reflex-es, pupils, light reflex, response to painfull stimulus, caloric test, corneal reflex, gag reflex, atropin test and EEG. Six hours later he developed a motor response to painfull sti-muli. The consultant pediatric neurologist could not define this response as a spinal reflex. Therefore we performed Tc- 99m HMPAO SPECT static and dynamic studies which showed brain death. But, repeat EEG has shown minimal electrical activity in left fronto-temporal region. At sixteenth day of hopitalisation he died. We concluded that, some advanced studies may help us in the diagnosis of brain death, but they can also show conflicting results and repeat-ing evaluation is also important for the diagnosis of brain death.