Early childhood statin therapy improved CHD risk in familial hypercholesterolemia

DALLAS — Statin therapy administered during childhood can reduce the risk for coronary heart disease in children with familial hypercholesterolemia, according to research presented at AHA 2013.

By age 30, coronary heart disease (CHD) survival rates were 100% in the group of young adult patients who received statins as children, according to a press release.

“Our results suggest statin therapy initiated in childhood reduces disease and death from heart disease in patients with FH [familial hypercholesterolemia],” Marjet Braamskamp, MD, a PhD student at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, said in a press release. “After 10 years of treatment, young adult FH patients had not suffered from CV complaints.”

The researchers randomly assigned 214 children aged 8 to 18 years with FH to placebo or pravastatin (Pravachol, Bristol Myers Squibb) between 1997 and 1999 for a previous study examining the drug’s 2-year safety and efficacy, according to abstract data.

Follow-up data indicate 82.4% of patients were still using statin therapy by age 18 to 30 years. Those who had affected parents demonstrated a 93% survival rate of CHD (P=.023). Moreover, FH fathers showed significantly more CHD (cumulative CHD survival at age 30 years: 90%) compared with the FH mothers (cumulative CHD survival at age 30 years: 97%; P<.001), according to abstract data.

Long-term follow-up data are needed to confirm these findings, according to researchers.

For more information:

Braamskamp M. Abstract #17837. Presented at: the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions; Nov. 16-20, 2013; Dallas.

Disclosure: This study was funded by the Dutch Heart Foundation. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.