HLRCC – A patient’s perspective

In September 2011, I paid a routine visit to a dermatologist at the Beth Israel Medical Centre, New York City, for a general consultation on a skin condition that had affected me for several years. Having had numerous unsightly and sometimes painful ‘skin-bumps’ removed over many years, this visit did not seem particularly special. I was previously told that these ‘skin-bumps’ were actually called ‘leiomyomas’ and took the form of a benign tumour of smooth muscle cells, originating from within the erector-pili of hair follicles. On this particular occasion, my dermatologist took a more detailed family history and flagged up something I was not previously aware of, a condition called ‘Reed’s syndrome’. This condition is also referred to by the more descriptive terms: multiple cutaneous and uterine leiomyomas and hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer.