“The Impact of the International Cooperation On FH Screening and Treatment: Results from the ScreenPro FH Project” was published in the Current Atherosclerosis Reports in September 2019.
The article is published open access and is freely accessible to everyone.
Abstract:
Purpose of Review Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is often perceived and described as underdiagnosed and undertreated,
though effective treatment of FH is available. Owing to the mentioned facts, it is ever more imperative to screen and treat FH
patients. Subsequent to the identification of patients, the project focuses on the improvement of their prognoses. The ScreenPro
FH project was established as a functional international network for the diagnosis, screening, and treatment of FH. Individual
countries were assigned goals, e.g., to define the actual situation and available treatment. With “central support,” more centers
and countries participated in the project. Subsequently, individual countries reported the results at the beginning and end of the
project. Collected data were statistically evaluated.
Recent Findings The increasing number of patients in databases, from 7500 in 2014 to 25,347 in 2018, demonstrates the
improvement in overall effectiveness, aswell as an increase in the number of centers from 70 to 252. Before all, LDL-C decreased
by 41.5% and total cholesterol by 32.3%. As data from all countries and patients were not available at the time of the analysis,
only those results from 10 countries and 5585 patients at the beginning of the project and at the time of writing are included.
Summary Our data are quite positive. However, our results have only limited validity. Our patients are far from the target levels
of LDL-C. The situation can be improved with the introduction of new therapy, PCSK9-i, evolocumab, and alirocumab.
International cooperation improved the screening of FH and finally led to an improvement in cardiovascular risk.
Online veresion of the article is aopen access and is freely accessible HERE.
PDF version of the article is ready to download HERE.