Androula Papastylianou

The Department of Intensive Care Medicine (DCIM) at the Nicosia General Hospital (www.intensivecare.com.cy/index.php/en/) will be a leading participant in the PMT CoE project. Opened along with the new Nicosia General Hospital in Oct 2006, the largest and only tertiary referral Hospital in Cyprus (550 acute beds), DICM has employed the first “closed type” – Intensivists stuffed ICU and is presently the largest Intensive Care facility in the island (17 beds ICU – 6 beds HDU – 4 beds Burns ICU – 12 beds CCU = total of 39 critical care beds). It employs 7 full time – board certified Intensivists (multidisciplinary access), 6 full time Intensive Care fellows in training (board certified in a primary specialty), more than 130 nurses in the critical areas and a multidisciplinary team of allied health professionals. DICM is admitting more than 1000 critically ill patients / year and main ICU (17 beds, ≈750 patients per year) has a crude mortality of 21% and a standardized mortality ratio (SMR) of 0.92 in 2015 (external audit data from PROSAFE system).Since its opening in 2006, DICM as an entity and/or through its scientific personnel has participated in over 15 R&D projects co-funded by national as well as EU (INTERREG, FP6, FP7, EUMEDIS, Leonardo etc.)

Nicosia General Hospital (NGH) is a 500-bed, public, tertiary hospital with teaching function in the capital of Cyprus. It offers high-quality medical services in a wide range of specialties and is affiliated with several state and private academic institutions, including the University of Cyprus Medical School, the Cyprus Technology University Nursing Department and Saint George University of London. The Oncology Department of NGH was the first medical centre on the island dedicated to cancer care services, including external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy, systemic anticancer therapies and palliative care. It was relocated to the new NGH building in 2006, and currently operates as a fully organized Medical Oncology Clinic with more than 800 admissions per year. The NGH Oncology Department consists of an 18-bed inpatient ward, a chemotherapy day care unit and an outpatient clinics, it offers a 24-hour oncology emergency coverage and it closely collaborates with patient advocacy associations offering homecare nursing, hospice and psychology support services. The Department treats all types of solid tumours in a multidisciplinary team approach integrating a wide range of medical, surgical, radiological and laboratory specialties affiliated with the Hospital, as well as the radiation oncology services of collaborating healthcare providers, including the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre and the German Oncology Centre. The medical staff has expertise in the use of all currently available types of anticancer treatments, including cytotoxic chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormone and molecular targeted therapies.

The Nicosia General Hospital neurosurgical clinic is the only state neurosurgical clinic in Cyprus. It is staffed with seven consultant neurosurgeons, which constitutes the biggest neurosurgical team in the island. As a result, we evaluate, operate and follow up the majority of intracranial tumors in the country. During last year we operated on 570 patients with various neurosurgical issues. Of these, approximately 70 were patients with intracranial tumors, while 30 of these cases concerned glioblastoma patients. 170 patients were operated on an emergency basis due to central nervous system trauma. This annual flow of patients makes our clinic a very significant neurosurgical center referral in Cyprus.

The Histopathology Department of Nicosia is the only public pathology laboratory in Cyprus, providing histological diagnosis to more than 80% of the Cypriot population. It employs, ten registered Pathologists and eleven qualified technicians, including a Molecular Biologist and a PhD in Molecular Diagnostics. Two of the Technicians are specially trained to support the Medical personnel in biopsy processing and microscopy. The Department offers specialised services on the entire spectrum of pathology, ranging from neuropathology, bone marrow and lymph node pathology, renal pathology, dermatopathology, forensic pathology etc, that refer to modern diagnostic techniques, such as a constantly updated panel of immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology (FISH, CISH, PCR, RT-PCR, etc) . This environment, provides the State with reliable diagnostic pillars, and serves as the sole Oncology Reference Center with the richest archival material in the state, both for the future diagnostic and prognostic, as well as for research purposes. More particularly, it has a well-organised specimen repository including paraffin blocks and histology slides covering biopsies of the last two decades supported by a comprehensively established electronic data management system. This wealth of biospecimen does not only involve biopsies or surgical samples from all Cyprus-based Public Hospitals but, serving as the State’s Reference Center, the NGH Histopathology Department receives samples from across the Private Sector via the two Government-affiliated Oncology Centers (i.e the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Center and the German Oncology Center) for a mandatory second opinion as well as for specialised diagnostics such as FISH and molecular analysis for immunotherapeutics (i.e. PDL-1). The department employees the WHO revised safety guidelines for diagnostic laboratories and is in the process of the ISO/IEC assessment. The department serves as a teaching affiliate of the UCY Medical School and has been engaged in numerous projects with strategic partners including UCY, CING and EPOS. Both the archival and future bioptic material, would be utilized more effectively for research.

The Department of Radiology (DR) of the NGH performs imaging, diagnostics and interventional procedures both on an inpatient and an outpatient basis as well as at the Emergency Department and at rural medical centres. The Department performs more than 130,000 x-rays, 30,000 CTs, 18,000 ultrasounds, 5,000 MRIs and many more procedures. As part of a population screening program more than 17,000 mammographies are performed and read by 3 individual radiologists. The DR employs 11 radiologists and 49 technicians. The Radiological Department of the Nicosia General Hospital is headed by Dr Vayios Partassides and its personnel includes 13 Consultant Radiologists, 5 Specialist Registrar Radiologist in training and 43 Radiology Technologists, 3 nurses and 10 secretaries. The Department performs imaging, diagnostic and interventional examinations of outpatients and inpatients as well as inpatients from the Department of Accidents and Emergency and from Urban and Rural Health Centres. The Department is active in the following tasks: education of the medical students of the University of Cyprus and the University of Nicosia; training of specialist registrar radiologists; radiology technologists training in Radiation Protection in cooperation with the Department of Medical Physics of the Hospital.

The activities of the Department include the following activities: personal dosimetry services; secondary standard dosimetry calibration; Radiation Imaging Quality Control Services for all public hospitals; quality assurance for non-ionising radiation equipment; licensing advice on radiation protection and radiological safety aspects; development and support of specialist software packages; developing, supervision and implementation of working protocols; participation in tendering and evaluation committees for medical equipment; training; development of the PACS system for all Governmental Hospitals and Health Centres; supervision of the PACS team.