Medicine

The Essen Centre for Rare Diseases (EZSE) opened at University Hospital Essen in 2013. It is estimated that four million people are affected by rare diseases in Germany alone. In an urban agglomeration like the Ruhr metropolis, many people suffer from diseases of this kind. Because the various medical conditions are complex and little is known about them, they often go un­detected or are only diagnosed at a very late stage. For sufferers this often means nothing short of an odyssey from one doctor to another. Inter­disciplinary cooperation between doctors and researchers and central points of contact for ­registered doctors and patients are especially ­important in attempting to improve the situation for them. The initiative set up to do this also has the support of the European Union. Thanks not least to its core clinical and research areas, University Hospital Essen already has many years of expertise in the treatment of certain rare diseases and research on the underlying causes. This expertise is now being pooled in the EZSE.