Return of spontaneous respiration in an infant who fulfilled current criteria to determine brain death

It is generally assumed that the child's brain is more resistant to insults leading to death. Current guidelines for brain death, therefore, avoid application of these standards to young children.1 The determination of brain death in children, however, has become increasingly important, and different sets of new guidelines for children have been recently published.1-4 Especially, the recommendations of a special task force, consisting of representatives from neurologic organizations and the American Academy of Pediatrics, were published in five major journals.4 Those primary distinctions were three separate longer observation periods depending on the child's age and the necessity for two corroborating electroencephalograms (EEGs) or one EEG with a corroborating cerebral radionucleotide angiogram.