The management of critically ill patients has, in the past few years, been a discipline at the forefront of development which continues to make progress with the support of basic and clinical research in the broadest sense. The application of biotechnology in this particular area has revealed itself to be essential in an attempt to provide the best interpretation of the bio-humoral and functional alterations present in a long series of often complex clinical conditions. The care of the critically ill is also at the forefront in the application of increasingly sophisticated clinical monitoring systems that also contribute to standardizing certain procedures, establish guidelines, and evaluate the efficacy of therapeutic interventions and their costs

At the APICE '96 research scientists and clinicians were provided with updated guidelines for the treatment of patients with acute and chronic critical conditions. This volume contains 100 chapters,in which the main pathophysiological concepts were reviewed, with special emphasis on the cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, and neurologic systems. Special reference is made to the pharmacologic and biotechnologic strategies currently being used to support those vital functions that are affected by severe and sometimes devastating diseases. The topics of infection, sepsis,and SIRS have been reviewed and updated in keeping with the most recent information available, and particular focus has been directed to ethics.

This critical care medicine book substantially differs from others due to the range of peculiarities that characterize it. Since it deals with acute patients in critical conditions, this is, as it were, a 'borderline'book, in the sense that it is intended for those, who, in their activity, need a continuous and in-depth interdisciplinary approach to optimize the quality of the treatments offered to critically-ill patients. This book helps to have a better understanding of the current limits of human intervention and aims at supplying updated guidelines; in particular, it is intended for those who, although having to guarantee continuity and top-quality therapies, must decide when and why the collaboration with and intervention by experts is necessary

This volume is published under the auspices of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive Care Medicine, which consists of 48 members societies (both medical and nursing) - a truly world wide organisation - and whose aim is to promote excellence in the care of critically ill patients. The volume will be distributed to delegates on occasion of the 9th International Congress of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine, to be held in Buenos Aires at the end of August 2005.

Il volume A] destinato a migliorare gli standards di formazione e di aggionarmento nel settore anestesiologico. I contenuti vogliono essere una guida per operare meglio in funzione del paziente. Il testo A] rivolto sia agli specialisti del settore che agli specializzandi in anestesia.