Objective: To explore the clinical features and prognosis of cardiogenic shock (CS) in pediatric patients. Methods: Nineteen patients with CS ad mitted to our PICU from January 2002 to December 2005 were included in the study. The clinical data, the records of electrocardiogram, chest radiograph, echocardiograph were reviewed, and the prognostic value of these indexes were analyzed. Results: The clinical manifestations of pediatric CS were respiratory or gastrointestinal systems without specific features. The mortality was 68.4%, and among them 61.5% died within 24 hrs after admission. The time of the death was on average 31.5 hrs after admission. The underlying diseases were fulminant acute myocarditis (5/8), congenital heart disease (5/6), cardiomyopathy (2/2), and infect endocarditis (1/1). The causes of death were cardiac pump failure (4), arrhythmias (4) and cardiac pump failure with arrhythmias (5). There were no significant differences in the hemodynamic parameters of echocardiography such as LVEF, SVI, LVEDVI, LVESVI, CI between patients who survived and those who died. The mortality of CS with DIC or cardiopulmonary arrest was 100% and 75%, respectively. The mortality was not related to the severity of liver/renal dysfunction or metabolic acidosis. Conclusion: The mortality of pediatric CS was high, especially soon after admission. The patients with CS and DIC or cardiopulmonary arrest had the poorest prognosis. The main causes of death were cardiac pump failure and/or arrhythmias in the patients with myocarditis, congenital heart disease and cardiomyopathy. Echocardiography was the most useful noninvasive diagnostic mean and it should be used as an early routine examination. However the parameters could not be regarded as prognosis-related. Traditional management was not useful for treating CS patients. The techniques of VAD, BiVAD and ECMO should he introduced as soon as possible for treating CS originated from fulminant acute myocarditis in order to improve the prognosis.