Dr Catherine Orteu

Dr Orteu is a senior consultant dermatologist with broad experience in managing common inflammatory skin diseases such as acne, eczema and psoriasis. She has a national and international reputation in the fields of Connective Tissue Disease (morphoea, systemic sclerosis, lupus erythematosus, overlap CTDs) and complex medical Dermatology (sarcoidosis, autoimmune blistering conditions, vasculitis). Her NHS practice is at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, where she has been a consultant since 2001. She has developed a Dermatology Connective Tissue disease service there, in close collaboration with Rheumatology colleagues, caring for over 500 patients with these conditions. She leads a monthly complex medical Dermatology clinic with Dermatology colleagues and is also interested in the impact of immune deficiency on the skin, attending a monthly joint clinic with Immunology colleagues caring for patients with Chronic Granulomatous Disease and other immunodeficiency diseases. She is a leading expert in the diagnosis and cutaneous manifestations of Fabry disease, a rare lysosomal storage disorder.

Notwithstanding her major interest in medical dermatology, she continues to undertake weekly surgical lists and has over 25 years' experience in undertaking mole checks, and in the diagnosis and excision of skin cancer and benign skin lesions.

She has over 30 peer-reviewed publications, principally on the immunological mechanisms involved in the generation of chronic cutaneous inflammation and auto-immunity, morphoea, systemic sclerosis and scleroderma-like diseases, and on the cutaneous manifestations of Fabry disease. She has written and co-authored 10 invited chapters, notably for Rook's Textbook of Dermatology, Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine, The Oxford Textbook of Rheumatology, and Rheumatic diseases and the skin.

She is a founding member of the British Society for Medical Dermatology and the current Chair of the Dermatology Clinical Reference Group. She is also a past president of the St John's Dermatological Society.

Diseases, Medical Tests and Treatments

• Primary excision of malignant lesion head and neck (S0602) and trunk and limbs (S0603)
• Excision of lesion of skin or subcutaneous tissue head and neck (S0632/42) and trunk and limbs (S0633/43)
• Removal of benign lesion on less than 10cm or on the scalp less than 5cm in diameter (S0651)
• Biopsy of skin or subcutaneous tissue (S1500)
• Curettage/cryotherapy of lesions of skin (S1110/S0820)
• Shave biopsy of lesion of skin (S1420)
• All forms of morphoea (morphea, localised scleroderma) including, plaque, linear, generalised and pansclerotic forms and Eosinophilic Fasciitis.
• Systemic sclerosis (Systemic scleroderma)
• All forms of lupus erythematosus, including Subacute Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus (SCLE) and Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE)
• Dermatomyositis
• Connective tissue disease overlap syndromes
• Diagnosis and cutaneous manifestations of Anderson Fabry disease
• Diagnosis and surgical removal of skin cancer
• Medical management of acne

Dr Orteu attended Lycée Français de Londres and undertook medical training at the London Hospital Medical College, where she graduated in 1987. She completed her dermatological studies at the Royal Free and Royal London Hospitals (CCST 1999) and obtained her MD in immunodermatology in 1999, after serving as a Jules Thorne Research Fellow for two years. From 1997 to 1999, she served as the UK trainee representative for the British Association of Dermatologists. She also spent a year as a clinical research fellow in connective tissue disease and immunodermatology at the University of British Columbia as a result of a Geoffrey Dowling Fellowship (2000).