24-year-old HoFH-affected patient successfully treated

T’puram: Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, successfully performed LDL Apheresis for the first time on a 24-year-old patient suffering from the rare inherited disorder Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia (HoFH).

HoFH is a severe genetic condition characterised by extremely high levels of cholesterol in the blood from birth, often leading to premature cardiovascular disease at a young age. Patients with the disorder face a significantly increased risk of heart attacks and other serious cardiac complications.

The treatment was carried out under the leadership of cardiologists Harikrishnan S and Dr Manish Yadav. The patient, who developed heart disease at a young age due to cholesterol deposits in her arteries, previously underwent bypass surgery. Despite receiving the maximum recommended combination of cholesterol-lowering medications, her low-density lipoprotein (LDL), commonly known as ‘bad cholesterol’, remained dangerously high at around 500 mg/dL, with conventional drug therapy failing to produce the desired results.

LDL Apheresis is a specialised blood purification procedure designed to remove excess LDL cholesterol from the bloodstream. During the treatment, the patient’s blood is passed through a machine that separates plasma from blood cells. The LDL cholesterol is then selectively removed from the plasma through a specialised filtration process. The treated plasma is subsequently recombined with the blood cells and returned to the patient.

The procedure, which takes approximately two to three hours, can be performed on an outpatient basis without requiring hospital admission.