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VIDEO: Familial hypercholesterolemia presents ‘terrible paradox’
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NEW ORLEANS — In this video, Joshua W. Knowles, MD, PhD, FAHA, FACC, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University; attending physician at the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease, Familial Hypercholesterolemia Clinic; and chief medical officer of the FH Foundation, South Pasadena, Calif., discusses the highlights from a study that he presented on familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) at the National Lipid Association Scientific Sessions.
FH is associated with very high LDL levels, presents itself very early in life and can lead to extreme risk for CHD, but many FH patients are diagnosed late in life, commonly after incidence of MI or coronary intervention, Knowles said.
“The terrible paradox is if we can identify patients and treat them early enough, we can avoid most of the morbidity and mortality associated with this condition,” Knowles said.
Knowles presented findings from a U.S. registry of approximately 2,900 patients with FH.
“About half of the patients required more than one lipid-lowering therapy to get their LDL cholesterol down and despite this, the LDLs were still not optimally controlled,” said Knowles.
Additionally, patients in this cohort showed risk for CHD five to six times higher compared with people without FH of the same age and sex.
“We will be tracking these individuals over time to see how their treatment experience and clinical care changes over the next few years,” Knowles said.