Speakers
Kirsty Spence
Joy Ardill
Una Graham
Northern Ireland
Session Chair: Kirsty Spence
10.15am Joy Ardill, A lifetime experience in peptides and neuroendocrine tumours
10.45am Una Graham, Carcinoid syndrome
11.15am Claire McHenry, MEN1
Northern Ireland has several decades of experience in diagnosis and management of patients with Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs). These tumours, once thought rare, arise from cells of the neuroendocrine system and include gastrinoma, insulinoma, glucagonoma and carcinoid syndrome. Some patients will present with florid symptoms whereas others may be found incidentally. Advances in recent years have seen a step change in diagnosis and management of these patients and in 2019 Belfast became a European Centre of Excellence in NETs, acknowledging the high standard of care afforded to NET patients in the province.
Professor Joy Ardill, our first speaker, has over 50 years’ experience in the field of NETs. She has played a key role in the service since its inception, researching into and developing some of the early radioimmunoassays used to measure gut hormones in Belfast. Joy has dedicated her life to the field and is going to speak on ‘A lifetime experience in Peptides and Neuroendocrine Tumours’.
Our next topic, presented by Dr Una Graham (Consultant Endocrinologist, Deputy Chair of NI NET MDM) will focus on Carcinoid Syndrome. This condition typically only becomes clinically evident post-hepatic metastasis. Dr Graham will discuss carcinoid types, symptoms, diagnosis and management, and will conclude with a case presentation.
Our final speaker is Dr Claire McHenry. Claire is a Consultant Endocrinologist and the newest member of our NET MDM. Her clinical interests include multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1), an inherited disorder, presenting with tumours in endocrine glands (eg pituitary, pancreas, adrenals) and the duodenum. Dr McHenry will discuss MEN1 presentation, diagnosis, monitoring and management, and close the session with a MEN1 case presentation.
Joy Ardill studied Biochemistry at Queen’s University Belfast and completed a PhD in Medicine in 1973. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, a Fellow of the Association of Clinical Biochemists and Bachelor of Divinity. She was awarded the title, Honorary Professor of Medicine at Queen’s University Belfast in 2006 for her contribution to teaching and research in NETs. She has been Head of the Regional Regulatory Peptide Laboratory in The Royal Victoria Hospital NHS Trust Belfast for several decades, retiring in 2012 but returned part time until 2022.
Committed to spreading awareness of NETs, Joy delivers a 15- day student selected component on NETs for third year medical students at Queen’s. Over the years she has supervised more than 30 postgraduate student doctorate degrees and has examined PhD theses in the UK, Europe and Australia. She was an external examiner for Trinity College Dublin until 2022.
Since 1970 Joy has been heavily committed to research, in the early years predominantly in the study of peptic ulcer disease. In 1989-1990 she spent a sabbatical year in a rural hospital in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since 1990 she has been involved in studying the chemistry of NETs. Belfast is the regional referral centre for NETs and a NET Centre of Excellence in Europe. The laboratory facilitates chemical diagnosis and monitoring of patients with NETs for Ireland and the UK. She established the first UK multidisciplinary team for NETs in Belfast in 1999. Over the years she has been principal investigator or co-ordinator for several NET trials in Belfast and has been an advisor to several pharmaceutical companies including Ipsen and Novartis.
Joy is author of more than 100 peer reviewed publications and has presented nationally and internationally. A founder member the UKINETs she has been a co-author of the UKINET Guidelines. She is an active member of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), Quality of Life Group (Secretary 2004-2010) and a member of the team that developed the EORTC QLQ NET-21 questionnaire.
Her research has focused on earlier diagnosis, circulating prognostic indicators for NETs and the possibility of using circulating chemistry to guide earlier treatment intervention in an endeavour to improve both survival outcome and quality of life. Joy attends the Northern Ireland NET Patient Support Group and for the past 5 years has been a member of the scientific advisory committee for the Healing NET Foundation, an active NET patient physician group in the USA.
Dr Graham is a consultant in the Regional Centre for Endocrinology and Diabetes in the Royal Victoria Hospital. She is Deputy Chair of the Northern Ireland Neuroendocrine Tumour Multidisciplinary Team and Chair of the Northern Ireland Insulin pump network and Diabetes technology network. She is a subcommittee member of the UK and Ireland Neuroendocrine Tumour Society Clinical Practice Committee.
Dr McHenry is a consultant in the Regional Centre for Endocrinology and Diabetes, Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. Her interests are in pituitary disease and endocrine genetics, leading in services to ensure screening and surveillance of affected families particularly MEN1 and SDH mutations.
