Guía práctica para el diagnóstico de muerte encefálica en urgencias del Hospital de San Ignacio (Bogotá, Colombia) / Diagnosis of Brain Death in the Emergency Room of San Ignacio Hospital from Bogota, Colombia: Practical Guideline

En la actualidad, los servicios de urgencias atienden pacientes con daño neurológicograve, especialmente por trauma craneoencefálico, en quienes durante la reanimacióninicial se logra la recuperación de la estabilidad hemodinámica, pero requieren intubacióntraqueal y soporte con ventilación mecánica, sin que con ello se logren recuperar lasfunciones cerebrales y de tallo, lo que lleva a la sospecha de muerte encefálica. No es útilque un paciente con alta probabilidad de certeza para este diagnóstico sea trasladado a unaunidad de cuidado intensivo, pero sí es necesario que los pacientes con este diagnóstico,potencialmente donantes de órganos, puedan ofrecer este último servicio altruista en suexistencia. Los médicos urgenciólogos deben hacer este diagnóstico cuando sea el casoy conocer el ámbito legal que lo rodea...

In currently, emergency services are faced with patients that have severe neurologicaldamage after traumatic brain injury, and especially in those that during the initial resuscitation is achieved hemodynamic stability,required intubation and mechanical ventilationsupport, and were unable to recovery functionalbrain, leading to the suspicion of brain death. Itis futile for those patients with a high probabilityof certainty of this diagnosis need to be hospitalizedto intensive care unit but, it is necessary forthose patients with a diagnosis of brain death,potential organ donor, can offer a last selflessservice in your existence. Emergency physiciansshould make this diagnosis when is appropriate,and know the legal field that surrounds it...

Diagnosis of brain death.

Brain death (BD) should be understood as the ultimate clinical expression of a brain catastrophe characterized by a complete and irreversible neurological stoppage, recognized by irreversible coma, absent brainstem reflexes, and apnea. The most common pattern is manifested by an elevation of intracranial pressure to a point beyond the mean arterial pressure, and hence cerebral perfusion pressure falls and, as a result, no net cerebral blood flow is present, in due course leading to permanent cytotoxic injury of the intracranial neuronal tissue. A second mechanism is an intrinsic injury affecting the nervous tissue at a cellular level which, if extensive and unremitting, can also lead to BD. We review here the methodology of diagnosing death, based on finding any of the signs of death. The irreversible loss of cardio-circulatory and respiratory functions can cause death only when ischemia and anoxia are prolonged enough to produce an irreversible destruction of the brain. The sign of such loss of brain functions, that is to say BD diagnosis, is fully reviewed.