Diabetes insipidus accompanying brain death in children.

Diabetes insipidus (DI) developed in 14 of 16 children who satisfied criteria for brain death. The occurrence of DI after an hypoxic/ischemic insult may represent midbrain death and seems to be a clinically useful sign in the diagnosis of brain death in children. In two patients, DI resolved spontaneously; these patients and children without DI may have had small areas of residual cerebral blood flow and brain function. The onset or cessation of DI was temporally associated with the use of dopamine in three patients.