Maartje Meier
Maartje Meier received her medical degree in 2017 in Leiden and worked as a resident in orthopedic surgery in Ziekenhuis Amstelland and Alrijne Ziekenhuis. In April 2019 she started her PhD on Fibrous Dysplasia at the Center for Bone Quality at the LUMC, in collaboration with both the orthopedic surgery and Endocrinology. Fibrous dysplasia is a rare disease, caused by post-zygotic mutations of the GNAS-gene. Bone remodelling is disturbed, resulting in weak fibro-osseous lesions in bone. This can cause pain, fractures or deformities. These benign tumours can occur along with hyperfunctioning endocrinopathies, such as hyperthyroidism or growth hormone excess, and with café-au-lait-macules. This trias is called the McCune-Albright syndrome. The phenotype of the disease ranges from asymptomatic to severely affected and the prevalence is therefore not exactly known.
The aims of her PhD are to explore the pathophysiology of FD-bone and the response to medication in ex vivo bone tissue culture experiments, analyze safety of long-term use and withdrawal from denosumab therapy and surgical correction of femoral deformities mainly in children. In addition she is evaluating the improvements in quality of life in patients with FD/MAS during care in a multidisciplinary care pathway, and is starting a new study on the epidemiology of FD/MAS with the Danish national registries.
