OptimiZation Of Lipid Lowering Therapies Using a Decision Support System In Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome.

Patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) including myocardial infarction (MI) remain at risk of future cardiovascular events depending upon the interaction between inherited genetic factors/ and environmental factors including cholesterol over their lifetime. Expert guidelines on secondary prevention such as the ESC therefore increasingly recognise a more individualised approach.

Lowering LDL-C with high intensity lipid lowering therapies (LLTs) initiated within 10 days of an ACS reduces risk more than less intense regimens. In the SWEDEHEART registry which included 40,6007 patients over a median follow up of 3.78 years, patients who achieved the largest absolute reductions in LDL-C or greatest percentage reduction in LDL-C, had the lowest risk of a range of cardiovascular events and mortality. The approach to use of lipid lowering (LLT) was statin based monotherapy with few attaining the recommended cholesterol goals.

The 2019 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and European Atherosclerosis Society (EAS) dyslipidaemia guidelines categorise patients with an ACS event as very-high risk and recommend an LDL-C goal of < 1.4 mmol/L (<55 mg/dL) and >50% reduction in LDL-C in this population. But several studies in European populations have highlighted gaps between clinical practice/ implementation of treatment recommendations compared with evidence based guideline recommendations. In the DA VINCI study representing 5,888 patients prescribed LLT in 18 European countries, LDL-C goal achievement in very-high risk populations was just 39% per 2016 ESC/EAS guidelines of<1.8mmol/L with only about 18% achieving the new recommended lower goal of <1.4mmol/L. It has become clear that greater implementation/ use of available combination therapies will be needed if lower recommended goals are to be achieved. It is unclear what the barriers are to earlier implementation and may include a lack of physician understanding of risk of further CV events or a lack of understanding of the quantifiable benefits from specific magnitudes of LDL-C lowering.

The aim of this trial is to assess whether providing information to those managing ACS patients that quantify absolute risk and the absolute benefit from different lipid lowering regimens through access to a Decision Support Tool (DSS) system is more likely to result in earlier intensification of lipid lowering regimens and thus result in a greater proportion of patients achieving the ESC lipid lowering goals after ACS compared to patients being managed routinely without access to a DSS standard (cluster RCT design). It is well established that unless treatments are initiated through secondary care or as part of acute care pathways, there is considerable inertia in further optimisation of treatment in primary care. Thus, this trial will assess whether presenting quantifiable data on risks and benefits results in behaviour change among secondary care physicians and improves cholesterol management within 4 months of an ACS.

The DSS is available online or remotely accessible via a website intended for clinicians to estimate the clinical benefit of any LLT regimen, whether single or combination therapies. The DSS shows the expected risk, risk reductions and number needed to treat for the various treatments selected by the clinical user on the potential value of initiation of an add-on therapy for reducing the risk of other Cardiovascular (CV) events. This DSS provides a graphical and tabular representation of the time-dependent CV treatment benefit model for LLTs published in a peer-reviewed journal article.

The trial hypothesises that having a pictorial representation of both individual risk and recommended treatments will encourage clinicians to implement clinical guidelines more closely. The clinicians using the DSS will be asked to complete a DSS evaluation at the end of the trial. Implementing the patient-specific recommendation remains at the clinicians' discretion.