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ORPHA:391665

Homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia

medium confidenceDisorder

Also known as: HoFH

Publications

2,600

94.9th percentile

Trials

51

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,036

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare disorder of lipid metabolism characterized by severely elevated plasma total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels, and subsequent premature formation of atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary arteries, proximal aorta, and other arteries, significantly increasing the risk of premature cardiovascular disease and death. Xanthomas of the skin and in tendons are also a hallmark of the disease. Lethality is high due to early complications, in particular myocardial infarction and aortic valvular disease.

How rare: 1-9 / 1 000 000 — roughly one to nine people per million. In a city the size of Kolkata, perhaps a few dozen.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (1)

homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    2,600 matched papers (1,630 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    51 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (10 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

2,600

2,600 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

2,600 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

1,630 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 94.9th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 2,600 · MeSH hits: 70

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,036

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Raal FJ15 papers · 2026

    Division of Endocrinology, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Gaudet D12 papers · 2026

    Clinical Lipidology and Rare Lipid Disorders Unit, Department of Medicine, Université de Montréal Community Gene Medicine Center, Lipid Clinic Chicoutimi Hospital and ECOGENE-21 Clinical and Translational Research Center, Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Wiegman A11 papers · 2026

    Department of Paediatrics, Amsterdam UMC, Location AMC, the Netherlands (A.W.).

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Hegele RA10 papers · 2026

    Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry, Schulich School of, Medicine and Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada (Dr Hegele).

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Pordy R10 papers · 2026

    Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Tarrytown, NY, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Blom DJ8 papers · 2026

    1Department of Medicine and Cape Heart Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Reeskamp LF7 papers · 2026

    Department of Vascular Medicine, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Rosenson RS7 papers · 2026

    Metabolism and Lipids Program, Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. Electronic address: robert.rosenson@mssm.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Cuchel M6 papers · 2026

    Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, US.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Harada-Shiba M6 papers · 2026

    Cardiovascular Center, Osaka Medical & Pharmaceutical University, Osaka, 569-8686, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

51

interventional trials for this specific condition

51 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 10 currently recruiting in our sample. 123 trials are registered for familial hypercholesterolemia, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 27 July 2026

51 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 97.1th percentile).

medium confidence · 97.1th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

51 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Broader category: familial hypercholesterolemia

123

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

Observational and natural-history studies

14 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

Directly listed under NPRD Group 1.

Group 1 — one-time curative treatment

Up to ₹50 lakh per patient

Financial support for treatment at notified Centres of Excellence (figures evolved from the original ₹20 lakh Group-1 ceiling).

Policy figures change. Verify current MoHFW / CoE guidance before relying on any amount. Verify

Centres of Excellence (15)
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) — New Delhi, Delhi
  • Maulana Azad Medical College — New Delhi, Delhi
  • Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences — Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
  • Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) — Chandigarh, Chandigarh
  • Centre for DNA Fingerprinting & Diagnostics with Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences — Hyderabad, Telangana
  • King Edward Memorial Hospital — Mumbai, Maharashtra
  • Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research (IPGMER) — Kolkata, West Bengal
  • Centre for Human Genetics with Indira Gandhi Hospital — Bengaluru, Karnataka
  • Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children (ICH & HC) — Chennai, Tamil Nadu
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) — Jodhpur, Rajasthan
  • Sree Avittam Thirunal Hospital (SAT), Government Medical College — Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) — Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
  • Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) — Imphal, Manipur
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) — Patna, Bihar
  • Assam Medical College & Hospital — Dibrugarh, Assam

Voluntary contributions / crowdfunding (separate from CoE funding): https://rarediseases.mohfw.gov.in/

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia"

Interventional trials matched via: both (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 51 interventional · 14 observational · 1 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"familial hypercholesterolemia"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: HoFH

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T15:09:31.397Z