title: [Prescribing monitoring in clinical practice: from enlightened empiricism to rational strategies].
abstract: Monitoring of a medical condition is the periodic measurement of one or several physiological or biological variables to detect a signal regarding its clinical progression or its response to treatment. We distinguish different medical situations between diagnostic, clinical and therapeutic process to apply monitoring. Many clinical, variables can be used for monitoring, once their intrinsic properties (normal range, critical difference, kinetics, reactivity) and external validity (pathophysiological importance, predictive power for clinical outcomes) are established. A formal conceptualization of monitoring is being developed and should support the rational development of monitoring strategies and their validation through appropriate clinical trials.
authors.affiliation: Division de pharmacologie clinique, Département des laboratoires, Hôpital de Beaumont-CHUV, 1011 Lausanne. thierry.buclin@chuv.ch
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Buclin
authors.forename: Lilli
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Herzig
mesh_terms: D019348:Empiricism; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000379:methods*