"The Right Heart Priority" in Shock Treatment——My Paper 20 Years Later

Although the shock has long and routinely been treated, right heart and pulmonary circulation used to be the forgotten corners in clinical management. Twenty years ago, my colleagues and I published the paper Right Ventricular Function of Patients with Septic Shock: Clinical Significance and proposed the strategy of "right heart priority", in which we took right heart as a starting point, completed whole circulation pathway of blood flow clinically with hemodynamic indicators, and performed treatment based on the hemodynamic changes at real locations, degrees and responses to therapeutic interventions. Over the past 20 years, this strategy has been confirmed by many others and practiced in many hospitals worldwide. The current treatment of shock is a continuous, dynamic, target directed quantitative hemodynamic therapy and is moving from individualized treatment towards organ targeted treatment.