[Intensive care medicine 2004].

The following survey is supposed to present the most important new therapeutic approaches und the current standard of treatment in intensive care medicine including pathophysiological and diagnostic aspects of important diseases, particularly sepsis, septic and cardiogenic shock. Furthermore, advances in the following issues are summarized in detail: ventilation, especially acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and the broad spectrum of non-invasive ventilation, new therapeutic options in the field of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and the importance of albumin dialysis in acute liver failure.