Goal-directed haemodynamic therapy: an imprecise umbrella term to avoid

Abstract

'Goal-directed haemodynamic therapy' describes various haemodynamic treatment strategies that have in common that interventions are titrated to achieve predefined haemodynamic targets. However, the treatment strategies differ substantially regarding the underlying haemodynamic target variables and target values, and thus presumably have different effects on outcome. It is an over-simplifying approach to lump complex and substantially differing haemodynamic treatment strategies together under the term 'goal-directed haemodynamic therapy', an imprecise umbrella term that we should thus stop using.

Keywords: arterial pressure; blood pressure; cardiac index; cardiac output; goal-directed therapy; haemodynamic monitoring; pulse pressure variation; stroke volume.