The Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (RUNMC) has a tradition of more than 40 years in providing medical care for patients with adrenal diseases and in carrying out research in this field. To further stimulate patient care and research a number of collaborating departments within RUNMC have recently have established the Radboud Adrenal Centre (RAC).
The mission of RAC is to serve as an expertise centre for the diagnosis and treatment of all kinds of adrenal diseases, both in children and adults, and to promote top level research on adrenal diseases, especially pheochromocytoma/paraganglioma, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, primary aldosteronism and hyper- and hypocortisolism.
The research carried out within RAC is embedded in the research institute IGMD (Institute for Genetic and Metabolic Disease). The research on pheochromocytoma /paraganglioma and on primary aldosteronism is also embedded in the research institute NCEBP (Nijmegen Centre for Evidence Based Practice). For national and international collaborations we refer to the next paragraphs. International advisors of the centre are Prof. Wiebke Arlt (University of Birmingham, UK), Prof. Karel Pacak (NIH, Bethesda, USA) and Prof. Graeme Eisenhofer (University of Dresden, Germany). The centre maintains close contacts with the Dutch support group for patients with adrenal diseases (NVACP).
Participating departments (and staff members) are:
- Endocrinology (Hermus, Timmers, Netea-Maier, Stikkelbroeck)
- General Internal Medicine (Lenders, Deinum, Riksen)
- Paediatrics (Otten, Claahsen-van der Grinten, Noordam)
- Laboratory Medicine (Sweep, Wevers, Van Herwaarden)
- Radiology (Schultze Kool, Prokop, Vartiainen, Arntz)
- Urology (d’Ancona, Langenhuijsen, Witjes)
- Surgery (De Wilt)
- Nuclear Medicine (Gotthardt)
- Medical Oncology (Ottevanger)
- Pathology (Kusters, van Krieken)
- Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Health Technology Assessment(van der Wilt)
- Anaesthesiology (Renes, van Aalst)
- Anthropogenetics (Spruijt)
The steering committee of the Radboud University Nijmegen Adrenal Centre consists of members of the founding departments, i.e., Endocrinology (Hermus, Timmers), General Internal Medicine (Lenders, Deinum) and Paediatrics (Claahsen-van der Grinten, Otten). Each of them has a longstanding expertise in clinical care and research in the field of adrenal disease. From the department of Laboratory Medicine Sweep will participate in the steering committee.
The tasks of the steering committee in upcoming years are to stimulate:
- collaborations between participating RUNMC departments and with (inter-)national partners, both in patient care and research
- cutting edge basic research in the field of adrenal disease
- an increase in the number of PhD students within the centre (aim is approximately 10 in 2012)
- an increase in the number of high impact publications
- an increase in the number of grant applications
Every two weeks the members of RAC meet to discuss challenging patients with adrenal diseases (30 min) and to discuss protocols and research topics (30 min). The meetings take place every first and third Monday of the month between 17.00 and 18.00 at the department of Radiology, Mooyaartzaal, route 667.