Screening for Familial Hypercholesterolemia in Small Towns: Experience from 11 Brazilian Towns in the Hipercolbrasil Program

Background  Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a genetic disease characterized by elevated serum levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and it is associated with the occurrence of early cardiovascular disease. In Brazil, HipercolBrasil, which is currently the largest FH cascade screening program, has already identified more than 2000 individuals with causal genetic variants for FH. The standard approach is based on cascade screening of referred index cases, individuals with hypercholesterolemia and clinical suspicion of FH.

Objectives  To perform targeted screening of 11 small Brazilian cities with a suspected high prevalence of people with FH.

Methods  The selection of cities occurred in 3 ways: 1) cities in which a founder effect was suspected (4 cities); 2) cities in a region with high rates of early myocardial infarction as described by the National Health System database (2 cities); and 3) cities that are geographically close to other cities with a high prevalence of individuals with FH (5 cities). Statistical significance was considered as p value < 0.05.

Results  One hundred and five index cases and 409 first-degree relatives were enrolled. The yield of such approach of 4.67 relatives per index case was significantly better (p < 0.0001) than the general HipercolBrasil rate (1.59). We identified 36 IC with a pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant for FH and 240 affected first-degree relatives.

Conclusion  Our data suggest that, once detected, specific geographical regions warrant a target approach for identification of clusters of individuals with FH.

Familial hypercholesterolemia; Genetic Testing; Cardiovascular Disease