IMR Press / RCM / Volume 23 / Issue 12 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm2312410
Open Access Review
Familial Hypercholesterolemia Patients with COVID-19—Effective Cholesterol-Lowering Therapy is Urgent both during and after Infection
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1 Mehiläinen Airport Health Centre, 01530 Vantaa, Finland
2 Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Helsinki, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
3 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, 2193 Johannesburg, South Africa
4 Wihuri Research Institute, 00290 Helsinki, Finland
*Correspondence: alpo.vuorio@gmail.com (Alpo Vuorio)
Academic Editor: Brian Tomlinson
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2022, 23(12), 410; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2312410
Submitted: 20 September 2022 | Revised: 16 October 2022 | Accepted: 4 November 2022 | Published: 19 December 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cardiovascular Health and COVID-19)
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH) patients are the prime example of subjects who are at high risk for both acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and ischemic stroke during, and post, SARS-CoV-2 infection. HeFH per se, if left untreated, results in premature clinical atherosclerosis often presenting in the fourth or fifth decade of life. The other concern in HeFH is endothelial dysfunction which is already evident from early childhood. In untreated HeFH patients, the severe hypercholesterolemia causes endothelial dysfunction from an early age, and as a result thereof, atherosclerotic lesions develop prematurely, particularly in the coronary arteries, and result in further endothelial dysfunction and inflammation in these critical segments of the arterial tree. As the pre-existing endothelial dysfunction in HeFH patients is most likely sensitive to further direct and indirect SARS-CoV-2 virus-dependent damage, we can infer that HeFH serves as an example of a comorbidity that predicts a poorer prognosis with COVID-19 infection. Indeed, a large US national database study showed that patients diagnosed with HeFH and SARS-CoV-2 infection had significantly increased Annualized Incidence Density Rates (AIDRs) of AMI when compared to matched HeFH controls not having been diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Effective cholesterol lowering is essential for the prevention, or at least alleviation, of the detrimental effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection among HeFH patients. Due to the pre-existing subclinical or even clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in subjects with HeFH, cholesterol-lowering treatment needs to be continued or, better still, intensified during, and for an extended period post, SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Keywords
familial hypercholesterolemia
statins
PCSK9 inhibitors
endothelial dysfunction
atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease
COVID-19
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