Are the "life-support" courses updated? An evaluation of their literature base

As a condition of employment, many physicians practicing in the United States are mandated to remain current in their certification of some or all of the life-support courses. These courses reputedly set the standard of care by establishing nationally recognized paradigms of resuscitation. These courses' textbooks are revised and re-released at regular intervals.

To determine whether the source data for these texts are vigorously updated with each revision and whether there is an obvious literature-based impetus to release a new version.

A comparison was made of the years of the references contained within the three most recent textbook editions of the advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), advanced trauma life support, basic life support, and pediatric advanced life support courses. The years of the references were tallied for each text, and these tallies were compared both within and between the courses. Data were divided into three groups: group 1, references published before the previous versions' release; group 2, references published after previous versions' release; group 3, references dated within three years of the texts' release.

There appears to be a large amount of overlap of group 1 data throughout most of the course texts; the number of references in group 2 and 3 varies greatly between and within these courses.

With one exception (ACLS in 2003), the life-support courses appear to be based on similar reference sets for the last 7 to 11 years. There may be a reason other than an availability of a critical mass of new information that prompts the release of a new edition of these life-support courses.