Transplantation proceedings
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Since cadaveric donation is the main source of organs for transplantation in many countries, the diagnosis of brain death is an important issue. The cessation of cerebral circulation is one phenomenon closely related to brain death. Transcranial Doppler sonography is one of the accepted techniques to establish cessation of cerebral circulation. ⋯ In all the cases the insonation of the arteries of the base of the skull was performed. In supratentorial lesions, the predominant pattern was a reverberating flow, while in infratentorial lesions systolic spikes pattern was most frequent. Our study showed a high sensitivity of transcranial Doppler sonography for the diagnosis of brain death and the existence of different mechanisms of cerebral circulatory arrest depending on the location of the intracranial pressure wedge.