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GP switch to lifetime risk on NICE agenda

Exclusive GPs look set for dramatic changes to cardiovascular risk assessment and adoption of lifetime risk scoring after the Joint British Societies and NICE entered talks aimed at ensuring their recommendations were ‘pretty much identical'.

The JBS, which Pulse revealed in January is planning to recommend lifetime risk in place of 10-year risk scoring for cardiovascular disease, has delayed publication of its guidance to allow its messages to be aligned with those of NICE.

NICE publishes its hypertension guidance this week, and is currently reviewing its advice on lipid modification.

Professor Bryan Williams, professor of medicine at the University of Leicester, is chair of the NICE hypertension guideline group and is also helping draft the JBS3 guidance, which had been scheduled for publication in the summer.

He said: ‘The NICE guidance has been developed in combination with JBS. It's been a close relationship between the two organisations. We are waiting for NICE to be sure the messages are pretty much identical.'

‘The next time NICE reviews its risk assessment it may well choose to look at lifetime risk. It's a problem when 10-year risk is used as existing tools do not quantify risk best in patients under 40. It opens the door for someone to look at the benefits of long-term risk. That is what will be done by JBS3 and in due course I would think by NICE.'

Dr Paramjit Gill, a GP in Birmingham and member of the NICE lipid modification guideline development group, said: ‘The evidence for this is still emerging. We'll have to wait until we see the JBS3 guidelines. If there's robust evidence, then it will be reviewed.'