[European Resuscitation Council Guidelines 2000 for adult advanced life support].

The European Resuscitation Council (ERC) last issued guidelines for Advanced Life Support (ALS) in 1998 [1]. These were based on the 1997 International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) Advisory Statements [2]. In 1999 and 2000 representatives of ILCOR, at the invitation of the American Heart Association, met on a number of occasions in Dallas to agree a Consensus on Science upon which future guidelines could be based. Representatives from the ERC played a prominent role in the deliberations, which culminated in the publication of The International Guidelines 2000 for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care — A Consensus on Science [3]. The consensus was evidence based wherever possible. The ERC ALS Working Group has considered this document and has recommended some changes in the guidelines that will be suitable for European practice. These changes, together with a summary of the Sequence of Actions in ALS, are presented in this paper. The changes have also been incorporated into the curriculum of the ERC ALS provider courses and a new manual has been published to be used in all such courses from 2001 [4].