“Airway, breathing, and circulation are the prerequisites of life”

“The common denominators of death”—dysfunction of airway, breathing, and circulation—dominate this issue. On pp 1863 and 1870 we publish the latest guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council on basic and advanced life support. As Jerry Nolan and Carl Gwinnutt point out in their accompanying editorial, the theme of these revisions is simplification (p 1844). Basic life support and early defibrillation are the only measures that improve long term survival after a cardiac arrest, so the guidelines concentrate on being easy to teach and implement.

In hospital at …