Predicting resilience in heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia: A cohort study of octogenarian patients

Abstract

Defining patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) destined not to develop clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) has significant implications for precision and discovery medicine. We investigated the predictors of resilience to ASCVD in a cohort of 248 octogenarian patients with FH enrolled in the SAFEHEART study. Median age at the time of analysis was 84.7 years (82.3-88.1) and 83.6 years (81.9-86.4) in the octogenarian resilient FH (OR-FH) and octogenarian controls non-resilient FH (OCNoR-FH) groups, respectively (p=0.073); 92 (80.0%) and 68 (51.1%) patients were female in the first compared with the second group (p<0.001). Multivariate logistic regression showed that a low 10-year score in SAFEHEART-Risk Equation was the only independent predictor of OR-FH. Application of this simple and validated risk equation may potentially be useful for predicting patients ultra-resilient to the ASCVD sequelae of FH who may require less intensive use of healthcare resources.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease; Familial hypercholesterolemia; Lipid-lowering treatment; Octogenarian; Very elderly individuals.