New challenges in cardiac intensive care units
Enzo Lüsebrink1,2, Antonia Kellnar1,2, Clemens Scherer1,2
1Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik I, Klinikum der Universität München, Marchioninistraße 15, 81377, Munich, Germany.
Insights
Critical care cardiology, or CICU, is a demanding subspecialty. Modern CICUs manage complex patients, requiring multidisciplinary expertise and advanced skills for critical cardiovascular conditions.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Critical Care Medicine
Background:
- Critical care cardiology has evolved significantly since the 1960s.
- Modern cardiac intensive care units (CICUs) manage complex patients with high burdens of cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular critical illnesses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the challenges and successful management strategies in CICUs.
- To emphasize the need for integrating advanced CICU management into critical care training.
Main Methods:
- Review of current practices in CICU patient management.
- Focus on multidisciplinary approaches and specialized skills required.
Main Results:
- CICUs require a combination of expertise in cardiovascular diseases, emergency, critical care, and internal medicine.
- Technological innovations, including venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO), present new challenges and require specialized training.
Conclusions:
- Successful management of complex CICU patient cohorts is crucial.
- Advanced CICU management must become an integral part of critical care training for fellows-in-training (FIT).
Abstract:
Critical care cardiology is a steadily and rapidly developing sub-specialization within cardiovascular medicine, since the first emergence of a coronary care unit in the early 1960s. Today, modern cardiac intensive care units (CICU) serve a complex patient population with a high burden of cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular critical illnesses. Treatment of these patients requires a multidisciplinary approach, with a combination of highly specialized knowledge and skills in cardiovascular diseases, as well as emergency, critical-care and internal medicine. The CICU has always posed special challenges to both experienced intensivists as well as fellows-in-training (FIT) and is certainly one of the most demanding training phases. In recent years, these challenges have grown significantly owing to technological innovations, with new and steadily rising numbers of complex interventional procedures and new options for temporary circulatory support for critically ill patients, such as venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO). Herein, we focus on the successful CICU management of these special patient cohorts, which must become an integral part of critical-care training.
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