Management of homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in real-world clinical practice: A report of 7 Italian patients treated in Rome with lomitapide and lipoprotein apheresis

Homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH) is a rare, genetically determined condition of highly elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC) levels. If untreated, patients do not typically survive beyond the second decade of life. Traditional lipid-lowering therapies (statins and ezetimibe) are largely ineffective in HoFH patients, and extracorporeal lipoprotein apheresis (LA) forms the mainstay of treatment. Lomitapide is a microsomal triglyceride transfer protein inhibitor approved for the treatment of HoFH as an adjunct to LA. We undertook to examine the efficacy and safety of lomitapide in 7 HoFH patients treated with LA in the Lipid Clinic and Therapeutic Apheresis Unit in Rome, Italy outside a clinical trial setting.