Eligibility for lipid-lowering drug therapy in primary prevention: how do the Adult Treatment Panel II and Adult Treatment Panel III Guidelines compare?

In May 2001, the Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) of the National Cholesterol Education Program issued revised guidelines for diagnosing and treating high blood cholesterol.1 These guidelines represent a major advance in risk assessment. They were preceded by the ATP I guidelines (1988), which focused on primary prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD), and by the ATP II guidelines (1993),2 which discussed primary and secondary prevention. In the ATP II and ATP III guidelines, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is the primary target of risk-reduction therapy.