ABSTRACT
The American Heart Association, together with representatives from The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation [ILCOR], which is made up of leading resuscitation organizations from the Americas, Europe, Southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, undertook a series of evidence based evaluations of the science of resuscitation which culminated in the publication of Guidelines 2000 for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care in August 2000. Experts from non-ILCOR organizations from Asia and else-where also participated in drawing up the guidelines. The Pediatric Life Support Working Party of the European Resuscitation Council [ERC] has considered this document and the supporting scientific literature and has recommended changes to the ERC Pediatric Basic Life Support [PBLS] and Pediatric Advanced Life Support [PALS] Guidelines. The approach to changes has been to alter the guidelines in response to convincing new scientific evidence and, where possible, to simplify the guidelines in order to assist teaching and retention. There is a paucity of experimental evidence, both old and new, to inform the development of guidelines for pediatric resuscitation. Some alterations, therefore, have been made in response to evidence from animal work, studies in adults and to aid consistency between adult and pediatric guide-lines where this was consistent with pediatric resuscitation needs. The Qatar Resuscitation Council [QRC] basically adopts these changes as endorsed by the ERC and in this review we present a summary of these changes