Vnitr Lek 2017, 63(1):25-30 | DOI: 10.36290/vnl.2017.005

ScreenPro FH - Screening Project for Familial Hypercholesterolemia in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe: Basic Epidemiology

Richard Češka¹, Tomáš Freiberger^2,3, Andrey V. Susekov^4,*, György Paragh⁵, Željko Reiner⁶, Lale Tokgözoğlu⁷, Katarína Rašlová⁸, Maciej Banach⁹, Branislav Vohnout^8,11, Andrzej Rynkiewicz¹², Assen Goudev¹³, Gheorghe-Andrei Dan¹⁴, Dan Gaiţă¹⁵, Belma Pojskić¹⁶, Ivan Pećin⁶, Meral Kayikçioğlu¹⁷, Olena Mitchenko¹⁸, Marat V. Ezhov¹⁹, Gustavs Latkovskis²⁰, Žaneta Petrulionienė²¹, Zlatko Fras²², Nebojsa Tasić²³, Erkin M. Mirrakhimov²⁴, Tolkun Murataliev²⁴, Alexander B. Shek²⁵, Vladimír Tuka¹, Alexandros D. Tselepis²⁶, Elie M. Moubarak²⁷, Khalid Al Rasadi²⁸

¹ Third Department of Medicine - Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism of the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and General University Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic

² Molecular Genetics Lab, Centre for Cardiovascular Surgery and Transplantation, Brno, Czech Republic

³ Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

⁴ Department of clinical Pharmacology and therapeutics, Academy for Postgraduate Education, Ministry of Health, Russian Federation

⁵ Institute of Internal Medicine, University of Debrecen Faculty of Medicine, Debrecen, Hungary

⁶ Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Metabolic Diseases, School of Medicine University of Zagreb, University Hospital Center Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

⁷ Department of Cardiology, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey

⁸ Coordination Center for Familial Hyperlipidemias, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovakia

⁹ Department of Hypertension, Medical University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland

¹¹ Institute of Nutrition, FOaZOS, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovakia

¹² Department of Cardiology and Cardiosurgery, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Warmia and Mazury, Olsztyn, Poland

¹³ Queen Giovanna University Hospital, Sofia, Bulgaria

¹⁴ University of Medicine Carol Davila, Colentina University Hospital, Bucharest, Romania

¹⁵ Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, University of Medicine & Pharmacy Victor Babes, CardioPrevent Foundation Timisoara, Romania

¹⁶ Cantonal hospital, Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

¹⁷ Cardiology Department, Ege University Medical School, Lipid Clinic, Izmir, Turkey

¹⁸ Institute of Cardiology, AMS Ukraine Dyslipidemia Department, Kiev, Ukraine

¹⁹ Russian Cardiology Research and Production Center, Moscow, Russian Federation

²⁰ Latvian Institute of Cardiology and Regenerative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Latvia; Paul Stradins Clinical University Hospital, Riga, Latvia

²¹ Centre of Cardiology and Angiology, Vilnius University Hospital Santariskiu Klinikos, of Cardiology and Angiology, Vilnius, Lithuania

²² Division of Internal Medicine, Preventive Cardiology Unit and Medical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Slovenia

²³ Cardiovascular research Centre, Cardiovascular Institute "Dedinje", Belgrade, Serbia

²⁴ National Centre of Cardiology and Therapy named after academician Mirsaid Mirrakhimov, Kyrgyz State Medical Academy naved after I. K. Akhunbaev, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

²⁵ Republican Specialized Center of Cardiology, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

²⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Ioannina, Atherothrombosis Research Centre, Ioannina, Greece

²⁷ LDL apheresis Centre, Dahr El Bachek Government University Hospital - DGUH, Roumieh - Lebanon

²⁸ College of Medicine and Health Science at Sultan Qaboos University, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman

Introduction:
Despite great recent progress, familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is still underestimated, under-diagnosed and thus undertreated worldwide. We have very little information on exact prevalence of patients with FH in the Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (CESE) region. The aim of the study was to describe the epidemiological situation in the CESE region from data available.

Methods:
All local leaders of the ScreenPro FH project were asked to provide local data on (a) expert guess of FH prevalence (b) the medical facilities focused on FH already in place (c) the diagnostic criteria used (d) the number of patients already evidenced in local database and (e) the availability of therapeutic options (especially plasma apheresis).

Results:
With the guess prevalence of FH around 1 : 500, we estimate the overall population of 588 363 FH heterozygotes in the CESE region. Only 14 108 persons (2.4 %) were depicted in local databases; but the depiction rate varied between 0.1 % and 31.6 %. Only four out of 17 participating countries reported the the LDL apheresis availability.

Conclusion:
Our data point to the large population of heterozygous FH patients in the CESE region but low diagnostic rate. However structures through the ScreenPro FH project are being created and we can hope that the results will appear soon.

Keywords: diagnosis; epidemiology; familial hypercholesterolemia; screening

Received: December 22, 2016; Published: January 1, 2017  Show citation