Familial hypercholesterolemia patients treated with statins at no increased risk for intracranial vascular lesions despite increased cholesterol burden and extracranial atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND AND
PURPOSE: To correlate known vascular disease risk factors and the signs of extracranial and intracranial changes of vascular origin in young patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (FH).
METHODS: 39 DNA test-verified heterozygous FH North Karelian patients (FH-NK), aged 6 to 48, 28 of them treated with statins, and 25 healthy controls underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and carotid ultrasound.
RESULTS: Common carotid intima-media thickness was significantly greater in the patients (P=0.005). MR angiography showed no pathological changes, other than 1 incidental aneurysm. The number and size of white matter hyperintensities on T2-weighted MR images, considered as markers of microvascular alterations, did not differ between patients and controls.
CONCLUSIONS: FH-NK patients treated with statins seem to be at no increased risk for brain infarcts or other brain lesions of vascular origin when younger than age 50.