Until recently, monitoring of cerebral blood flow and metabolism was an
unattained goal. Determination of cerebral blood flow was limited to
intermittent measurements and particularly difficult to perform in
critically ill patients. Meanwhile there are techniques available,
however, to monitor cerebral blood flow and cerebral oxygenation, both
globally and regionally. Therefore we thought it worthwhile to discuss
these new continuous techniques and to compare them with well-known
techniques which discontinuously measure CBF. For that purpose, an
international workshop with some leading experts in the field was held
in October 1992 in Berlin. The workshop consisted of about 20 lectures,
either reviews on a special topic, or latest results. These
contributions were given by invitation and were extensively discussed.
Unfortunately it is impossible to reproduce the discussions. On the
other hand, all speakers delivered a manuscript promptly after the
meeting so that we were able to edit them within a short time. Since
monitoring of cerebral blood flow in intensive care is a rapidly growing
and changing topic, the written contributions should be quickly
available. Authors, editors and publishers have tried to come close to
this ideal. As editors we would like to thank the authors and the
publishers who enabled us to come out with this volume of the
proceedings as early as possible.