Future Directions for Clinical Medicine

Abstract

As summarized in the several other articles in this volume, understanding of the pathogenesis of pulmonary edema is rapidly increasing. Many lines of current research promise to provide dramatic new insights which will undoubtedly revolutionize the clinical therapy of edema resulting from acute lung injury. Such progress is based on an understanding of how injury and edema come about and how lung function is affected. The areas of basic research that appear most promising should be obvious from the preceeding articles. But what are the important implications for clinical medicine in the near future? There are several. New approaches to measuring critical pathophysiologic variables are being tested in humans or soon will be. Groups are collaborating to critically evaluate proposed therapies. Functional abnormalities of the lungs, critical to survival, are being measured and related to clinical course in humans.