The Krakow Amethyst Radiotherapy Center is currently the only center in Małopolska that performs stereotactic radiotherapy, a method that has not been available in this region for some time. This groundbreaking technique, often called radiosurgery, has already been used in the treatment of several patients, and others are being prepared for the procedures.

The idea of ​​stereotactic radiotherapy is to administer relatively high doses of radiation to a very limited and precisely defined disease area, sparing the healthy tissue surrounding the tumor. An important advantage is also the reduction of radiotherapy time. The results of stereotactic radiotherapy often give results comparable to surgical treatment, and at the same time such therapy can be used when surgical treatment is impossible due to the location of the tumor or concomitant diseases. At the Amethyst Radiotherapy Center, this method is used to treat lesions located in internal organs, e.g. the lungs and liver, and in the spine.

The first student of the Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science started an internship at the Amethyst Radiotherapy Center in Krakow. The facility signed an agreement with the AGH University of Science and Technology to organize internships for the best students.

The fields of study Technical Physics and Medical Physics from 2012/13 to the end of 2015 at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow are additionally financed from the Human Capital Operational Program. This means that the fields of these studies have been recognized by the Minister of Science and Higher Education as priority for the development of our country. Thanks to EU funds, students are provided with, among others: additional professional internships.

AGH students complete internships in the field of medical physics at the Amethyst Radiotherapy Center. This center, operating since December 2013, has highly qualified staff. The entire team of this facility began specialized training, also in the field of medical physics, many months before its opening. Two medical physicists from the Center - Sylwia Pysklak and Krzysztof Czaja - were among the elite group of people who passed the State Specialization Examination in 2013 with the best results. Now they will share their knowledge with AGH students.

A medical physicist is a profession essential in modern radiotherapy. In the teams responsible for the radiotherapy process, medical physicists prepare a treatment plan, select the appropriate irradiation technique, and control the operation of specialized devices.

Marcin Hetnał, MD, medical director of the Amethyst Radiotherapy Center, will co-chair the second session of the Forum "Is integrated health care possible?" together with E. Benedyk-Lorens, MD, PhD. Additionally, Dr. Hetnał will deliver a lecture on "Nutritional treatment in esophageal cancer. Observations in the radiotherapy department” as part of the third session of the Forum. Doctors from the Amethyst Radiotherapy Center are also involved in preparing the paper "Brachytherapy for head and neck cancer" together with the team of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery. The next topic they will discuss will be "Oligometastatic disease - results of local treatment".

Organized by the Specialist Hospital of Ludwik Rydygiera in Krakow The Forum is of great importance for the education of doctors and the exchange of specialist knowledge. This year's conference was held under the honorary patronage of Witold Kozłowski, Marshal of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. The forum will start on April 10 at 10.00:XNUMX, in the hospital auditorium on the first floor.

The Amethyst Group is expanding its operations in the UK, Austria and Romania.  It currently operates twelve radiotherapy centers in six countries, with another twenty in planning or development.

Opened in May 2020, Amethyst Vienna is the first private radiotherapy center in Austria. The clinic is located on the premises of the largest private hospital, Wiener PrivatKlinik. The center in Vienna can treat 1200 patients a year. It is designed so that it can be expanded with another linear accelerator to further increase treatment capacity in this area.

In April 2020, a third linear accelerator was installed in a clinic in Bucharest. Thanks to this, the Romanian facility can admit 240 patients requiring radiotherapy treatment every day.

Also in April this year, Amethyst's operations were expanded to include centers in Great Britain. British centers in London and Sheffield offer patients a non-invasive treatment method of intracranial radiotherapy using the GammaKnife device.

GammaKnife is a radiosurgical platform thanks to which procedures are performed without the intervention of a scalpel. GammaKnife uses up to 201 precisely targeted radiation beams to control malignant and non-malignant tumors, as well as vascular and functional disorders in the brain, without harming surrounding healthy tissue. Patients typically come and go from the hospital within a day and return to normal activities shortly after treatment. GammaKnife radiosurgery can be used instead of traditional surgery or whole-brain irradiation, depending on the diagnosis made for the individual patient.

Amethyst is focused on providing the highest quality services to patients, working closely with neurosurgeons and oncologists, as well as private payers and providers across the healthcare economy - He said Ludovic Robert, group CEO.  – Amethyst expects to continue to expand its business across the UK and other European countries - added.

The Amethyst Group has 17 oncology patients treated annually. Over 000 people, including 11 doctors, are employed in 400 European centers. Clinics use 65 linear accelerators for radiotherapy.

At the turn of April and May, Dr. Marcin Hetnał, director of the Amethyst Radiotherapy Center, will participate as a speaker in two important international medical conferences.

The first of them is the 7th edition of the Clinical Oncology update conference, which is scheduled for April 24-25 in Krakow. This is a meeting of oncologists, radiotherapists, surgeons and all other doctors interested in modern treatment of patients with malignant tumors, organized by Medycyna Practical and the editorial office of "Medycyna Practical Oncology". Experts from all over Europe will come to Krakow to give lectures, including: from Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Belgium, Spain and Russia. There are seven sessions dedicated to, among others: breast cancer diagnosis, oncology in young patients and the effectiveness and safety of new oncological therapies. During the second session devoted to new tools in the diagnosis of abdominal cancer, Dr. Marcin Hetnał will give a lecture. He will talk about the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the diagnosis of rectal cancer.

On May 8 and 9 this year the director of the Krakow Amethyst Radiotherapy Center will visit Gelsenkirchen in Germany. The topic of this year's international conference RUHR TALKS 2015 will focus on the issue of adaptive brachytherapy. Two main scientific sessions will be devoted to breast cancer and brachytherapy used to treat this type of cancer. The first one will be led by prof. Ph.D. med Razvan Galalae, head of the Radiotherapy Clinic of the Evangelische Kliniken Gelsenkirchen and member of the scientific council of the Amethyst Group. In the third session closing the conference, Dr. Hetnał will also present a lecture - it will be a report on the breast cancer treatment protocol using radiotherapy being implemented throughout Europe.

Following the latest trends in medicine and the opportunity to contact and exchange views with other specialists from around the world is an important element of the philosophy of the Amethyst Radiotherapy network. Doctors, medical physicists and technicians employed at Amethyst centers not only undergo uniform training in renowned medical centers, but also systematically improve their qualifications during national and international conferences and meetings.