Monitoring of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism in Intensive Care

Until recently, monitoring of cerebral blood flow and metabolism was an unattained goal. Determination of cerebral blood flow was limited to intermittent measurements and particularly difficult to perform in critically ill patients. Meanwhile there are techniques available, however, to monitor cerebral blood flow and cerebral oxygenation, both globally and regionally. Therefore we thought it worthwhile to discuss these new continuous techniques and to compare them with well-known techniques which discontinuously measure CBF. For that purpose, an international workshop with some leading experts in the field was held in October 1992 in Berlin. The workshop consisted of about 20 lectures, either reviews on a special topic, or latest results. These contributions were given by invitation and were extensively discussed. Unfortunately it is impossible to reproduce the discussions. On the other hand, all speakers delivered a manuscript promptly after the meeting so that we were able to edit them within a short time. Since monitoring of cerebral blood flow in intensive care is a rapidly growing and changing topic, the written contributions should be quickly available. Authors, editors and publishers have tried to come close to this ideal. As editors we would like to thank the authors and the publishers who enabled us to come out with this volume of the proceedings as early as possible.