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Scripps Opens New Front in Cancer War

A $43.9 million radiation therapy center recently opened by Scripps Health promises to step up the delivery of cancer treatment with state-of-the-art equipment that offers greater precision and speed.

The Scripps Radiation Therapy Center, a 45,420-square-foot complex located on John Jay Hopkins Drive across from Scripps Green Hospital, comes equipped with three new linear accelerators for the delivery of radiation therapy for most types of cancer. Manufactured by Varian Medical Systems of Palo Alto, the linear accelerators include a TrueBeam STx, which has the ability to choreograph 3-D tumor imaging, beam delivery and motion management.

Dr. Ray Lin, the radiation therapy center’s medical director, said the TrueBeam STx makes targeting tumors more efficient, even if the tumor is on the lung and treatment is given while the patient is breathing. The radiation beam is able to turn on and off in sync with inhaling and exhaling, he said. Tissue surrounding the tumor is also protected by getting less radiation dose based on the imaging technology and its ability to target tumors better, he said.

An additional feature of the technology is its ability to reduce treatment time from a typical 30-minute treatment down to five minutes or less for some tumor sites.

Fewer Side Effects

“It provides ultimately better care for the patients,” Lin said. “It’s faster and more precise, which hopefully translates to less side effects and more comfort.”

With a capacity for treating about 1,200 patients annually, the center is expected to draw patients primarily from Scripps’ 23 outpatient centers and five hospital campuses. The facility consolidates two existing radiation oncology centers at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Green Hospital.

Lin said combining the operations into one center is more financially feasible than upgrading the dual radiation oncology centers and it brings the services out of basement locations and into a warm, light-infused environment accented by wood furniture and nature-inspired artwork.

“With health care costs spiraling out of control we wanted to be responsible from a business perspective,” he said. “It made sense to consolidate both operations into one.”

Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps Health, said radiation oncology teams comprised of doctors, nurses and other staff from Scripps La Jolla and Scripps Green provided input when planning the Scripps Radiation Therapy Center, which was designed by FreemanWhite Inc. in a modernist style, using clean lines and crisp angles to evoke the high-level healing technology inside. A rooftop healing garden offers ocean breezes, a water feature and views to the eastern rolling hills. DPR Construction served as general contractor on the more than two-year project with key subcontractors including Hope Engineering, structural engineering; RBF Consulting, civil engineering; Wimmer Yamada & Caughey, landscape design; University Mechanical, mechanical and plumbing design-build; Dynalectric, electrical design-build; and Rossin Steel, structural steel.

Costs, associated with building and equipping the radiation therapy center, were funded through a combination of income from operations, debt financing and philanthropy that included a dozen notable gifts, according to Van Gorder.

Staffing Strategies

In addition to bringing in staff teams to help design the project, Van Gorder said the facility joins together various staff members to develop common best practices for the care of the patients. Such integration is in line with Scripps’ systemwide goals for eliminating fragmentation to improve efficiencies and reduce costs, he said.

“By coming together they’re actually able to work together and bring better care as opposed to working in silos,” Van Gorder said.

The Scripps Radiation Therapy Center augments a network of facilities and services Scripps employs to manage 4,000 cancer patients annually in the region including a Gamma Knife Center at the Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla campus. The center uses a medical instrument that emits finely focused beams of gamma radiation to target benign and malignant brain tumors. Last year, Scripps upgraded the Gamma Knife facility with the latest Perfexion radiosurgery technology.

By June 2013, Scripps plans to offer cancer patients additional services at a $220 million Scripps Proton Therapy Center on a 7-acre campus in the Carroll Canyon area of Mira Mesa. Depending on a patient’s cancer type, proton therapy is offered as an alternative form of radiation therapy using protons as opposed to photons. A key piece of equipment will be a 90-ton cyclotron that accelerates protons to extremely fast speeds to create a beam that can precisely reach tumors, even if deeply seated and located near critical organs.

The facility is being developed by Advanced Particle Therapy LLC of San Diego and will be operated by Scripps Health and Scripps Clinic Medical Group. APT has arranged the financing to build and equip the center, and will manage and maintain the building as well as the equipment made available from Varian Medical Systems.

Todd Hoff, corporate vice president of Scripps, said the proton therapy center and radiation therapy center are the culmination of a decade of planning by the Scripps administration and board of trustees.

“Cancer is continuing to be on the rise as patients are living older and their lifestyle contributes to that,” said Hoff, who says 1.6 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed nationwide annually and 10 percent of those are located in California. “All of these resources are perfectly timed to meet the demands of a growing patient population.”

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