Prevalence of familial hypercholesterolemia and its association with coronary artery disease: A Chinese cohort study

Background

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is underrecognized, and its association with coronary artery disease (CAD) remains limited, especially in China. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of FH and its relationship with CAD in a large Chinese cohort.

Methods

FH was defined using the Make Early Diagnosis to Prevent Early Death (MEDPED) criteria. The crude and age-sex standardized prevalence of FH were calculated based on surveys of the Prediction for Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk in China (China-PAR) project during 2007−2008. The associations of FH with incident CAD and its major subtypes were estimated with the cohort-stratified multivariate Cox proportional hazard models based on the data from the baseline to the last follow-up (2018−2020).

Results

Among 98,885 included participants, 190 participants were defined as FH. Crude and age−sex standardized prevalence and 95% confidence interval (CI) of FH were 0.19% (0.17%–0.22%) and 0.13% (0.10%–0.16%), respectively. The prevalence varied across age groups and peaked in the group of 60–<70 years (0.28%), and the peak prevalence (0.18%) in males was earlier, yet lower than the peak crude prevalence in females (0.41%). During a mean follow-up of 10.7 years, 2493 cases of incident CAD were identified. After multivariate adjustment, FH patients had a 2.03-fold greater risk of developing CAD compared to non-FH participants.

Conclusions

The prevalence of FH was estimated to be 0.19% in the participants, and it was associated with an elevated risk of incident CAD. Our study suggests that early screening of FH has certain public health significance for the prevention of CAD.