Objectives: To evaluate the performance of a newly implemented Cardiac arrest (CA) system in a 700 bed University Hospital in Porto, Portugal's second city.Methods: Information was collected during one year (1995), every time the Cardiac Arrest Team was called. The forms recommended by the European Ressuscitation Council were used for data collection.Results: The CA Team acted in 125 cases of cardiac arrest. The number of in hospital arrests was 83; of these 35 had recovery of spontaneous circulation(ROSC). In this group the hospital discharge rate was 15%.The out of hospital arrests were 42. 10 of these had ROSC. In this group 12% had successful hospital discharge.The average answer time of the CA team for in hospital CA was less than 3 minutes.In the patients whose first recognized rythm was VF, the average time from CA diagnosis to cardioversion was 2,9 minutes.Conclusions: The results from this series are in agreement with other reported series. This newly implemented CA system enabled us to achieve good standards of care.