Surgical Oncology
Surgical Oncology methods are used to treat precancerous conditions and cancers of the skin, soft tissue and bones, head & neck, lungs and chest wall, gastrointestinal tract, abdominal cavity, reproductive organs, breast, and some types of urinary-genital cancers. Surgical treatment and thermoablation are also applied to liver metastases and surgery for treating metastatic lungs.
Our hospital operates a number of health care departments: Gastrointestinal Surgical Oncology, Breast Surgical Oncology, Head & Neck Surgery and ENT Oncology, and Radiotherapy and Gynaecological Oncology with a total of 158 beds.
At the Radiotherapy and Gynaecological Oncology, surgical treatment of women’s reproductive organs is combined, where justified, with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Integrated multidisciplinary approach allows to deliver better treatment outcome by appropriately combining particular methods and shortening the duration of therapy.
The Greater Poland Cancer Centre is specialised in the treatment of breast cancer. It is here that Poland’s first Mammotome Biopsy Lab was established with a state-of-the-art stereotactic mammotome at its disposal. The device enables diagnostic specimens from mammography detected occult breast lesions to be collected non-invasively on an ambulatory basis.
Conserving methods and resection with simultaneous reconstruction are widely used in the management of breast tumours. The scope of immediate post-mastectomy breast reconstruction has been largely increased. As a result, patients undergoing mutilating surgery return home without any scarring or cosmetic deformity.
The combined teams of Prof. Paweł Murawa (head of the Oncological and General Surgery Department I) and Prof. Wojciech Gulasiński (head of the Head & Neck Surgery and ENT Oncology Department) performed the first laparoscopic oesophageal resection ever to be done in Poland and the first Akiyama procedure in the Wielkopolska region. Other modern treatment modalities include Nd-Yag laser palliation of oesophageal carcinoma introduced in 1979, and new laser therapy techniques employed owing to the cooperation with the Munich Gastroenterology Clinic. Currently, GPCC is the only centre to offer gastrointestinal laser therapy in the Wielkopolska and Lubuskie regions.
GPCC is one of Poland’s first hospitals to provide sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLMB). That method allows to avoid the resection of regional lymph nodes and is used primarily in the treatment of melanoma and breast cancer. SLMP has also been employed in the treatment of colorectal cancer. Owing to interdisciplinary cooperation, particularly with radiotherapists, colorectal patients can be offered a therapy involving pre-operative irradiation. Thus, more surgeries can be performed in patients who can have their sphincters conserved.
The Surgical Oncology Department II headed by Marek Teresiak was the first one in Poznań to perform surgical treatment of lung metastases in 1994. The Department comprises a Day Surgical Oncology Sub-Department where patients are given surgical procedures that do not require longer hospitalisation or endoscopic procedures in general anaesthesia.
The Head & Neck Surgery and ENT Oncology Department combines capabilities of laryngology, maxillofacial surgery; neurosurgery, and head & neck soft tissue surgery. It provides treatment mainly for patients suffering from cancers of the tongue, oral cavity bottom, tonsil, oropharynx, laryngopharynx, larynx, maxilla, orbit, skull base, thyroid and cervical part of the oesophagus. Due to their location, those cancers tend easily to cross the borders between particular medical specialities; therefore, both diagnosis and treatment require appropriate equipment and, most of all, highly skilled teams of medical professionals.
