Cholestyramine and ileal by‐pass in the treatment of familial hypercholesterolaemia

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A comparison was made of the therapeutic effectiveness of cholestyramine and an ileal by-pass operation as hypocholesterolemic measures in 13 patients with familial xanthomatotic type II hypercholesterolemia. Serum cholesterol and fecal steroids were measured before and at the end of a 10-day course of cholestyramine (32 g/day), and subsequently after an ileal by-pass operation. The mean decrease in serum cholesterol caused by cholestyramine (-17%) was significantly less than that caused by the surgical procedure (-33%). The increase in fecal steroid excretion, mainly as bile acids, was lower with cholestyramine (1.261 g/day) than after the ileal exclusion (2.176 g/day) and a positive correlation was found between the decrease in serum cholesterol and the increase in the fecal elimination of steroids of cholesterol origin. Even though the increase in fecal steroids with cholestyramine was positively correlated with that resulting from ileal bypass, the correlation between the corresponding changes in serum cholesterol level was not significant. The findings indicate that ileal bypass decreases serum cholesterol and increases fecal elimination of cholesterol more effectively than cholestyramine, and that the decrease in the serum cholesterol level induced by ileal exclusion is not consistently predictable by the serum cholesterol response to the preceding cholestyramine treatment.