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Brain death from cardiac arrest. [Neuroradiology] [CT]

This patient had a complicated medical history including severe congenital heart disease. He had cardiac arrest requiring one hour of resuscitation.

He never regained consciousness, and further evaluation with EEG one day later revealed minimal brain activity consistent with severe dysfunction; a CT of the head was done that did not show any significant findings at that time [top images].

Two days after that, repeat EEG and head CT were done due to no improvement in neurologic status. EEG showed no activity, and CT showed developing signs of diffuse cerebral edema and anoxic brain injury. After discussing goals of care with patient's family, support was withdrawn, and the patient passed away.

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1 comments
  • Yeah, that brain is toast. You can barely distinguish the sulci and gyri. I see a lot of these as an EEG tech doing chart reviews before hooking up my patients.