Personalized Physiological Medicine as the Future of Intensive Care Medicine

Personalized medicine has become increasingly popular over the last decade as a response to the variability of patients’ responses to certain medical or technological therapies [1]. The effectiveness of randomized controlled trials has become increasingly controversial. While personalized medicine came to be associated with the field of oncology, critically ill patients have also become a beneficiary of personalized medicine. Patients admitted to the intensive care unit have a series of multiple and intricate dysfunctions as well as complex and rapidly changing pathophysiological mechanisms underlying their disease. That is the background from which the concept of personalized physiological medicine (PPM) emerged. It is directly related to the therapy needs of a patient and their physiological status, determined by a certain genetic profile and characterized by biomarkers, specific to the individual and not exclusive to the disease [2-4]. Monitoring of organs becomes insufficient without continuous monitoring of microcirculation, cell metabolism, and the entire cellular functionality; the translation of these dynamic data into quantifiable parameters requires predominantly in vivo monitoring. [More]