Journey in guidelines for lipid management: From adult treatment panel (ATP)-I to ATP-III and what to expect in ATP-IV

Adult Treatment Panel (ATP), an expert panel to supervise cholesterol management was set up under the aegis of National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) in 1985. Since then NCEP-ATP has been revising and framing guidelines to enable clinician to deliver better treatment to cardiovascular patients and to educate general people. As a result, considerable reduction in cardiovascular related deaths has been observed in recent times. All three ATP guidelines viz. ATP-I, ATP-II and ATP-III have targeted low density lipoprotein as their primary goal. The ATP-III guideline was updated in the light of evidences from 5-major clinical trials and was released in 2004. It added therapeutic lifestyle changes, concept of risk equivalents, Framingham CHD-risk score non-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C) as secondary target and gave strong emphasis on metabolic risk factors. The earlier treat-to-target paradigm faced fierce criticism from clinicians across the globe because of insufficient proof of safety and benefits of treating patients with respect to an individual's low density lipoprotein (LDL) level. Further, demonstration of non-HDL-C and total cholesterol/HDL-C ratio as strong predictors of overall cardiovascular risk foresees new guidelines. A tailored-treatment approach was suggested instead of LDL-C target based treatment approach which was soundly based on direct clinical trials evidences and proposes treatment based on individual's overall 5- to 10-year cardiovascular risk irrespective of LDL-C level, leading to lower number of people on high dose/s of statins. Recent report of the Cholesterol Treatment Trialist's Collaborators meta-analysis strongly supported primary prevention of LDL with statins in low risk individuals and showed that its benefits completely outweighed its known hazards. Markers other than LDL-C like apolipoprotein B, non-HDL-C and total cholesterol/HDL-C ratio would take precedence in the risk assessment and strong emphasis would be given on tailored-treatment approach in the upcoming ATP-IV guideline.