30 years of echocardiography in ventilated patients: the key messages

1. To understand the concept of heart-lung interactions. 2. To understand mechanisms supporting heart-lung interactions and the limits of invasive monitoring for their adequate understanding and description. 3. To understand why and how echocardiography may advantageously replace pulmonary artery catheter to describe heart-lung interactions. 4. To illustrate with some clinical applications that echocardiography is then perfectly suitable for hemodynamic monitoring, especially in the mechanically ventilated patients.