An extraordinary center in Gdańsk. “Here I start to live again. It’s incredible that this can happen in Poland”
“We didn’t think that there could be a place in Poland with such a unique approach to the patient,” say patients treated at the Early Phase Clinical Trials Center in Gdańsk. – We have a chance to be in the first league in the world when it comes to knowledge about new drugs. Medicine is changing, it is promising for patients and fascinating for doctors – emphasizes Prof. Rafał Dziadziuszko, clinical oncologist and radiotherapist in charge of the center.
Before a drug is registered and can be administered to patients, it must undergo three phases of clinical trials, during which the best optimal dose of the drug is determined and its safety and effectiveness are assessed. Early phase (first and second) studies are the most difficult, especially if the new drug is to be used in humans for the first time.
Promising drug candidates
The Early Phase Clinical Trials Center at the University Clinical Center of the Medical University of Gdańsk is one of the first two such centers in Poland (the other one operates at the National Institute of Oncology in Warsaw). The center in Gdańsk was established almost 5 years ago. Patients have a chance to be treated here with drugs – or more often “drug candidates” – that are the most promising, have the greatest potential, and will soon be registered. First of all, these are anticancer drugs, but also cardiological, neurological and many subspecialties of internal diseases.
– The center was created out of a desire to help patients and a fascination with the development of science. A lot is happening in oncology, but also in other fields of medicine, so we decided to take part in clinical trials at the most difficult stage, when there is a promising substance that shows very good properties in in vitro tests and in animal models, and now we need to check and evaluate how will work in humans – says prof. Rafał Dziadziuszko, head of the Oncology and Radiotherapy Clinic of the Medical University of Gdańsk and the Center for Early Phase Research.
Professor Dziadziuszko is an oncologist and radiotherapist appreciated by patients for his knowledge and empathy, and also appreciated by international bodies of experts. In September, during the World Lung Cancer Congress in Singapore, he received the award. James D. Cox, among others for services in the field of lung cancer radiotherapy and special achievements in clinical research on lung cancer.
