[Basic life support and advanced cardiac life support: proposal of a new strategy to approach and prevent clinical events in dermatologic surgery].

Since complexity of surgical procedures has increased, and patients' co-morbidities have become more frequent, the risk of clinical complications in dermatologic surgery has also increased in the past decades. In order to better assess these risks, a flowchart based on a ruling triad consisting of the patient's health status, sedation level, and procedure complexity was developed to establish the type of cardiovascular support adequate to each procedure. Patients undergoing small surgeries with ASA < 2 should be assigned to basic life support; patients undergoing small surgeries with ASA > 2, and those undergoing medium-sized surgeries or deep sedation should be assigned to advanced cardiac life support (ACLS).