Hereditary hemochromatosis genotypes and risk of ischemic stroke

OBJECTIVE: We tested the hypothesis that the HFE genotypes H63D/H63D, H63D/wild type, C282Y/H63D, C282Y/C282Y, and C282Y/wild type are risk factors for symptomatic carotid atherosclerosis, ischemic cerebrovascular disease (ICVD), and ischemic stroke.

METHODS: We performed an age- and gender-matched case-control study of 701 cases with symptomatic carotid atherosclerosis vs 2,777 controls, and a prospective study of 9,178 individuals from the Danish general population followed for 24 years, during which 504 developed ICVD, of whom 393 had ischemic stroke.

RESULTS: Genotype was not consistently associated with symptomatic carotid atherosclerosis. The cumulative incidences of ICVD and ischemic stroke by age were increased for H63D/H63D vs wild type/wild type (log-rank: p = 0.003 and p < 0.001). H63D/H63D vs wild type/wild type had an age- and multifactorially adjusted hazard ratio of 2.0 (95% CI: 1.2 to 3.2; p = 0.007) and 2.1 (1.3 to 3.5; p = 0.004) for ICVD and of 2.4 (1.4 to 4.0; p = 0.001) and 2.8 (1.7 to 4.6; p < 0.001) for ischemic stroke; these remained significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Other hereditary hemochromatosis genotypes were not associated with ICVD or ischemic stroke.

CONCLUSIONS: Hereditary hemochromatosis H63D homozygosity predicts a two- to threefold risk of ICVD and ischemic stroke.