We are pleased to announce the publication of two major European Atherosclerosis Society (EAS) consensus statements:
Both statements were published simultaneously on 25 May 2026 and presented during a joint session at the EAS Annual Congress 2026 in Athens, Greece.
These landmark publications represent important advances in early detection, prevention, and lifelong management of inherited lipid disorders and cardiovascular disease.
The new consensus statement highlights the need to improve the detection and management of familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) in children and adolescents. The panel proposes widespread paediatric screening, earlier treatment, and updated approaches to diagnosis and care.
FH is a common genetic disorder characterised by lifelong elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), which increases the risk of premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). FH occurs in two forms: Heterozygous FH (HeFH), affecting approximately 1 in 300 people worldwide, and the rarer Homozygous FH (HoFH), affecting around 1 in 300,000. Individuals with HoFH, if untreated, are at extremely high risk of cardiovascular complications, already in childhood.
In the decade since the 2015 EAS consensus statement on FH in children, knowledge of the pathogenesis of FH has increased markedly, and a wider range of LLTs is now available (although access and reimbursement remain country-specific). This updated EAS consensus statement, co-chaired by professors Albert Wiegman and Jeanine Roeters van Lennep, provides revised diagnostic criteria, updated LDL-C treatment goals, and practical guidance on managing FH in children and adolescents. It emphasises the importance of starting LLTs early, ideally from the age of 6 for children with the HeFH and from the time of diagnosis for the children with the HoFH, and provides treatment algorithms for both HeFH and HoFH. The statement also addresses the transition to adult care and implementation strategies.
What is new in this EAS consensus statement?
Over the past decade, major advances in understanding FH have been accompanied by the development of a broader range of LLTs. Despite this progress, FH remains underdiagnosed and undertreated, particularly in children where it is rarely identified despite being one of the most common inherited conditions. “This is a missed opportunity, because we now have highly effective treatments that can normalise cholesterol levels and prevent cholesterol from accumulating in the arteries when started early in life.” says Co-Chair of the consensus and Trustee of FH Europe Foundation, Prof. Albert Wiegman (Netherlands).
Broader cardiovascular health implications
This important consensus statement comes at a very timely moment, following the announcement of the EU Safe Hearts Plan, where significant emphasis is being placed on cardiovascular health (CVH), early prevention, child health, and screening. With the recent call for evidence for cardiovascular health checks, the publication marks another important and highly practical set of evidence-based clinical recommendations for tackling cardiovascular disease (CVD) from early in life.
To address gaps in diagnosis, the EAS consensus panel proposes updated diagnostic criteria aimed at improving detection rates in younger populations. The panel also encourages all countries to establish paediatric screening programmes for FH.
Systematic screening approaches, including family cascade screening and universal paediatric screening in the first decade of life, have been shown to improve detection rates and to be cost-effective, but are not consistently used worldwide. “We cannot rely on chance diagnosis in adulthood,” says Co-Chair of the consensus and Scientific Advisor of FH Europe Foundation, Prof. Jeanine Roeters van Lennep (Netherlands). “Systematic screening is essential to find children with FH early and intervene effectively.”
Furthermore, the paper recommends testing for lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] in all children with suspected FH at the same time as paediatric screening, but not before 5 years of age.
We are delighted to share that Magdalena Daccord, FH Europe Foundation’s CEO, was one of the reviewers of the consensus statement.
Read:
Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) remains the leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for one in three deaths globally. Despite major advances in lipid testing, preventive therapies, and international treatment guidelines, implementation of optimal lipid management remains highly uneven across countries and healthcare systems.
Lipid clinics offer specialist care to patients at highest ASCVD risk and with rare lipid disorders. They play a key role in increasing and improving education about lipid disorders among other healthcare professionals, in organisation of national registries, and in promoting awareness of the societal benefits and reduced costs of improving prevention of ASCVD. The EAS-Lipid Clinic Network has been established so that lipid clinics from all over the world can work together to tackle shared challenges and learn from mutual exchange.
This new consensus statement from the EAS Lipid Clinic Network, involving more than 500 lipid clinics in 55 countries, highlights one of the LCN's main aims - the need to harmonise the diagnosis and management of lipid disorders globally.
Co-chair of the statement, Dr Christian Bork (Denmark) said: ‘We identified major differences between clinics, nationally and internationally, in the delivery of guideline-recommended patient care. While almost all clinics followed guidelines, there were issues with implementation, especially for diagnostic testing, treatment and follow-up. We have excellent evidence-based guidelines on dyslipidaemia, and developing more guidelines is not the answer. Instead, we need to focus on how we organise and operate lipid clinic networks to ensure harmonised patient care, adapting to the realities of access and funding across different regions.’ Co-chair and EAS President, Prof. Borge G. Nordestgaard (Denmark) added: ‘Harmonisation is crucial to ensure optimal patient care, and ultimately to reduce the burden of preventable cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes.’
Based on the 2024 EAS Lipid Clinic Network survey, the paper identifies several key areas for improvement, including increased education nationally and internationally, harmonisation of clinic organisation and treatment, guidance on staffing, development of national registries, and structured dialogue with governments to support funding and reduce the healthcare burden of ASCVD.
The consensus marks an important milestone for the clinical and patient communities by prominently including lived experience and a patient perspective. Elsie Evans, FH Europe Foundation Ambassador Programme Manager and a person living with HoFH, has been involved right from the beginning as an author of the publication.
The consensus statement provides practical recommendations for establishing well-functioning lipid clinic networks, including standards for diagnosis, treatment, multidisciplinary collaboration, education, and funding, with a particular focus on improving care in regions with high cardiovascular burden.
Read:
Together, these two EAS consensus statements reinforce the urgent need for a life-course, systems-based approach to cardiovascular prevention, from early screening and detection in childhood to equitable access to specialised lipid care across healthcare systems. They represent an important step towards reducing the burden of preventable cardiovascular disease worldwide.
FH Europe Foundation is pleased to welcome FH Iraq as a new member of the FHEF Network. This important step strengthens our shared commitment to improving the lives of people and families affected by familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) and other inherited lipid disorders through collaboration, education, advocacy, and a stronger patient voice.
Based in Iraq, FH Iraq is a growing organisation led by Dr. San Fatih, an internist with expertise in lipid disorders. The organisation works closely with the Iraqi Lipid Clinics Network, which currently brings together 19 healthcare professionals committed to improving lipid management and cardiovascular prevention across the country.
FH Iraq’s mission focuses on raising awareness, improving diagnosis, and strengthening support for people living with inherited dyslipidaemias. Their work spans patient support, education, advocacy, and awareness-raising initiatives, with a particular emphasis on earlier identification of patients, cascade screening, education for both patients and healthcare professionals, and improving access to evidence-based lipid-lowering treatments.
The organisation also advocates across a broader spectrum of inherited lipid disorders and cardiovascular risk factors, including homozygous FH (HoFH), elevated Lp(a), familial chylomicronaemia syndrome (FCS), and cardiovascular disease prevention more broadly.
One of the strengths of FH Iraq is its inclusive approach, bringing together people with lived experience alongside healthcare professionals working in lipidology and cardiovascular prevention. This combination of patient and clinical perspectives is essential to building effective advocacy and improving standards of care.
The organisation joined the FHEF Network to connect with established patient organisations, learn from international best practices, strengthen advocacy efforts, and support the development of higher standards of care for FH patients in Iraq. Their vision strongly aligns with many of the priorities shared across the FHEF community: earlier diagnosis, structured screening programmes, education, and equitable access to treatment.
FH Iraq also highlighted the importance of a united and evidence-based patient voice to strengthen advocacy efforts and improve the visibility of FH globally. By joining the network, they hope to contribute local experiences and challenges while participating in regional and international awareness and advocacy initiatives.
FH Europe Foundation believes progress accelerates when organisations work together openly and collaboratively, particularly in areas such as early detection, improved treatment pathways, and fair access to care. FH Iraq’s commitment to capacity building, awareness campaigns, and national screening initiatives reflects the growing momentum behind inherited lipid disorder advocacy worldwide.
As Dr. San Fatih shared in a message to FH Europe Foundation:
“A unified, evidence-based patient voice strengthens advocacy efforts, improves the visibility of FH, and supports equitable access to diagnosis and treatment across countries and regions.”
We warmly welcome FH Iraq to the FHEF Network and look forward to working together to strengthen awareness, improve pathways to diagnosis, and support better access to care—so that more people living with FH and inherited lipid disorders are identified, supported, and treated earlier.
April maintained strong momentum across our community, with growing visibility for HoFH following the successful PERFECTO closing event.
Looking ahead, key opportunities—from EU policy engagement to upcoming webinars and the EAS Congress—signal a dynamic period focused on collaboration, awareness, and impact.
Catch up on the key highlights from the April 2026 edition of Heart Beat:
The European Commission has launched a new Call for Evidence on health checks for cardiovascular diseases: an EU approach to early detection and screening.
This is more than just another EU initiative. It is a critical moment for our community to ensure that early screening and detection of cardiovascular risk factors, particularly inherited lipid disorders are systematically and strategically embedded in public health policy and cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention across Member States. This is something our community has been advocating for over a decade.
Across Europe, millions of people are living with inherited lipid disorders that significantly increase their risk of early heart attacks, strokes, and a broader spectrum of cardiovascular diseases, often without knowing it. CVDs remains Europe’s number one killer, claiming 1.7 million lives every year. Yet much of this burden is avoidable. An estimated 90 million people in the EU live with one or more inherited lipid disorders that place them at high risk of premature cardiovascular events, many of them undiagnosed.
Conditions such as familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH), its severe form homozygous FH (HoFH), elevated lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], and rare disorders like familial chylomicronaemia syndrome (FCS) are present from birth and largely genetically determined. In many cases, they can be identified through simple, accessible tests. And yet, detection remains alarmingly low. Up to 90% of people with FH are not identified. Despite affecting around 1 in 5 individuals, Lp(a) is rarely measured. Rare but severe conditions like HoFH and FCS are often diagnosed only after serious, sometimes life-threatening complications occur. For too many families, the first sign of risk is not a diagnosis, but a heart attack, a stroke, or a medical emergency. This is not due to a lack of science or tools, but a lack of systematic early detection.
This is precisely the gap that Europe now has an opportunity to address.
Key facts: EU Call for Evidence on cardiovascular health checks
The European Commission has launched a Call for Evidence on a forthcoming Council Recommendation on health checks for cardiovascular diseases: an EU approach to early detection and screening.
The consultation led by DG SANTE, opened on 21 April 2026 and will close on 19 May 2026. It forms part of the Safe Hearts Plan. Stakeholders can submit input via the Commission portal: https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/sante/items/933232/en.
What is being proposed?
The initiative aims to strengthen cardiovascular prevention across the EU by supporting Member States in developing more structured and effective health checks. The focus is on identifying risk earlier, before symptoms appear, and ensuring that people at risk are detected and managed in time. This includes improving access to routine checks for key indicators such as blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol, making better use of risk prediction tools and digital technologies, and targeting screening towards populations most at risk. At its core, the proposal recognises a fundamental reality: cardiovascular diseases develop silently, and prevention depends on detecting risk early enough to act.
What needs to be addressed
While this initiative is a major step forward, its impact will depend on how comprehensively “risk” is defined. If health checks focus only on traditional adult risk factors, a significant part of the problem will remain invisible. Inherited lipid disorders are among the most common drivers of premature cardiovascular disease, yet they are still largely absent from routine screening approaches. These conditions do not develop over time—they are present from birth. This requires a different, more proactive approach.
A meaningful EU framework for health checks must ensure that inherited risk is systematically captured. This includes integrating Lp(a) testing at least once in a lifetime, strengthening early detection of FH, including in children, and enabling pathways to identify severe and rare conditions such as HoFH and FCS. Just as importantly, detection must lead to action, through appropriate follow-up, access to treatment, and family-based approaches such as cascade screening that can protect entire generations. This is how Europe can move from reacting to disease to preventing it before it starts.
How to contribute
The Call for Evidence is open until 19 May 2026. Contributions can be submitted through the European Commission’s “Have Your Say” portal using the link above. This phase is designed for concise input (around 4,000 characters), focusing on the problems to be addressed, key actions, and expected impact. Attachments are possible.
A coordinated response and a call to action
FHEF has been preparing a coherent, evidence-based response to this Call for Evidence, building on our advocacy, policy work, and the lived experience of our community. For a few months a collaboration has been ongoing with the European Atherosclerosis Society and many of the consortia incl. PERFECTO FH, FH EARLY, PerMed FH and the diabetes community to link the opportunity of early screening and detection with Type 1 Diabetes.
To support the feedback process, FHEF will host 2 community calls on Monday, May 11, to present the initiative, gather input, and align on key priorities.
Register here:
This is a critical opportunity to shape how cardiovascular diseases are detected and prevented across Europe. We encourage everyone in our community to engage actively, but also strategically. A clear, unified voice will have far greater impact and ensure that inherited lipid disorders are fully recognised in the final recommendation.
Let’s prevent the preventable together!