The World Heart Federation (WHF) is excited to join the international FH community in celebrating FH Awareness Day 2024.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) remains a vastly underdiagnosed and undertreated condition that affects approximately 1 in 311 people \u2013 around 25 million individuals globally. In 2020, WHF and representatives from the global FH community issued a call to action \u2013 <\/span>Reducing the Clinical and Public Health Burden of Familial Hypercholesterolemia<\/span><\/i><\/a> \u2013 urging all stakeholders to implement nine key recommendations to further prevent premature cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. One critical recommendation highlighted the need to develop specific guidelines for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), with a strong focus on strategies for the identification, diagnosis, management, and care of affected individuals.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
WHF published an original paper<\/span> \u2013 <\/span><\/b>It is Time to Screen for Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia in the United States<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/a> \u2013 which reviews global best practices for HoFH screening and proposes a set of actionable measures that US states<\/span> \u2013 as well as other countries \u2013 can adopt to reduce the burden of HoFH. In line with the <\/span>2023 Updated European Atherosclerosis Society Consensus Statement on HoFH<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/a>, which recommends screening strategies specific to HoFH, our paper outlines key research and policy gaps that must be addressed to pave the way for universal newborn screening for HoFH in the United States.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n