VHL Information grows in Chile

El Mercurio, the largest newspaper in Chile, recently published a Letter to the Editor from Pierre Jacomet, sharing his personal history with VHL and asking doctors to watch for evidence of VHL.

In June El Mercurio published another Letter to the Editor, from Dr. Gloria Valdes. Dr. Valdes praised Pierre’s letter. "I wish to congratulate Pierre Jacomet for his efforts toward increasing our awareness of von Hippel-Lindau syndrome as well as other conditions involving pheochromocytomas ... The thorough review he provided ... will undoubtedly contribute to increasing an awareness of pheo-related conditions, not only in the general population, but also within the medical community."

Dr. Valdes also notes that a team has been assembled at the Clinical Hospital of the Catholic University of Chile (Santiago) where she works with a team focused on assessing and managing pheos. The team includes urologists, anesthesiologists and nephrologists specialized in pheochromocytoma. This pheo team has linked up with the Hospital Broussais in Paris (France) and the French VHL Study Group under Dr.Stéphane Richard, in order to carry out the genetic tests that will definitively diagnose the diseases that are revealed by the presence of pheochromocytomas. In closing her letter, she makes her pheo team available to Pierre, to the VHL Family Alliance and to the readership of El Mercurio.

This was not the result of a single letter, but of many conversations before the letter that Pierre conducted with members of the University medical community. It just shows what one committed individual can create!