Brain death in the pediatric intensive care unit. A clinical definition.

The establishment of criteria for brain death is important for decision making in the treatment of critically ill patients. Our experience involving 15 children with coma, apnea, and absent brain-stem reflexes for a period of greater than three days supports previous reports in adults that the diagnosis of brain death can be made by clinical criteria alone. None of these patients survived, and each of the 11 autopsies performed revealed marked liquefactive necrosis in the brain.