EDITORIAL Are we ready for the age of non-invasive haemodynamic monitoring?

It is fascinating and alluring—the evidence is converging that with goal-directed haemodynamic therapy we can actively contribute to better postoperative outcomes of our patients, particularly in our high-risk patients. And this is potentially pos-sible, as suggested byan overwhelming numberof publications from recent years, with completely non-invasive advanced haemodynamic monitoring. Indeed, it consequently marks the next step of a paradigm shift in haemodynamic monitoring that we have witnessed over the past two decades. While the pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) was widely used as the ‘holy grail ’ in haemodynamic monitoring after its introduction in the 1970s up until the late 1990s,1 several large randomized controlled trials failed to demonstrate improved outcome in patients monitored with the PAC which led to a marked decline in its use over the following years.2 Although the PA