Gliwice, Poland, March 12th 2012 – The Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center in Gliwice, Poland, has become the first hospital in Eastern Europe to be designated a European Reference Center for Education by Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR). As part of this recognition, the hospital will conduct clinical training programs in advanced radiotherapy techniques with Varian equipment.
“This prestigious step can only improve the level of basic education in radiotherapy within Poland by proliferating courses and workshops for radiation oncologists, physicists and radiation technologists,” says Professor Boguslaw Maciejewski, director of the center.
“Introducing advanced radiotherapy techniques such as intensity modulated radiotherapy, image-guided radiotherapy and RapidArc is challenging as these advances require well prepared educational courses and hands-on training programs,” added Prof. Maciejewski. “As an educational reference center, we will be able to help implement new high tech radiotherapy treatment techniques so they can be introduced safely across many countries in Central and Eastern Europe”.
Michael Sandhu, head of Varian’s international oncology business, added, “The experts at Gliwice have years of experience in advanced, high quality radiotherapy treatments and this will help them to make this knowledge more easily accessible to the regional community. This is a key step in the development and implementation of new treatment techniques in the region.”
Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology is a public comprehensive cancer center treating nearly 7,000 cancer patients with radiotherapy on nine Varian linear accelerators each year. Patients come mainly from the Upper Silesia region of southern Poland, although the hospital also treats patients from the rest of Poland, Germany, Great Britain and Ukraine.
“This site is one of the most pioneering radiotherapy departments in the country, with a track record of offering patients advanced radiotherapy treatments, particularly intensity modulated radiotherapy,” says Jose-Manuel Valentim, Varian’s director of global education programs. “We are honored to be working alongside this leading institution to educate local practitioners in their national language about advances in cancer treatments. Radiotherapy expertise in Poland is improving constantly and this move can only help to keep up the momentum.”
In 2009, Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center became the first hospital in Poland to introduce precise and efficient RapidArc® radiotherapy treatments, which are delivered in single or multiple rotations of the treatment machine around the patient and make it possible to deliver image-guided intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) times much faster than is possible with conventional IMRT.
Other Varian European Education Reference Centers include leading cancer hospitals in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Copenhagen, Denmark; Clatterbridge, UK; Paris, Avignon and Dijon in France; Leuven, Belgium; Berlin, Germany; Bellinzona and Luzern in Switzerland; Istanbul, Turkey; and Porto, Portugal.
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Editorial contact: Neil Madle, Varian Medical Systems, +44 7786 526068
About Varian Medical Systems
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world's leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology practices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also supplies high-energy X-ray devices for cargo screening and non-destructive testing applications. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 5,900 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America, Europe, and China and approximately 70 sales and support offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com or follow us on Twitter.