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3 CENTERS FAVORED

August 27, 2008 12:15 am

BY JIM HALL

Local cancer patients will have more treatment options according to plans endorsed yesterday by a regional health planning agency.

The Northwestern Virginia Health Systems Agency voted to recommend approval of new cancer centers in Stafford and Spotsylvania counties and the town of Culpeper. The centers will house the equipment needed to deliver radiation therapy to cancer patients.

The agency's board of directors made the recommendation after a public hearing in Culpeper.

If approved, the centers would open in 2009 and 2010 and would be housed at the Stafford Hospital Center, the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center and Culpeper Regional Hospital. Stafford and Spotsylvania are new hospitals now under construction.

"I'm excited," said Timothy Tobin, chief executive officer of the Spotsylvania hospital. "I think it's a really important piece of a full-service, acute-care hospital."

The proposals go now to Richmond for review by the Virginia Department of Health and a final decision by Dr. Karen Remley, the state health commissioner.

The review is part of a legal requirement that major health projects in Virginia receive a "certificate of public need."

Officials included cancer centers in their original applications for the Stafford and Spotsylvania hospitals in 2006. The health commissioner approved the new hospitals but deleted radiation therapy as one of the permitted services.

Currently, many local cancer patients receive radiation treatments at the Cancer Center of Virginia, on State Route 3 in Spotsylvania County.

The center has two linear accelerators, machines that deliver targeted doses of radiation. The staff there did about about 14,100 treatments last year.

The center, like the Stafford hospital, is a subsidiary of MediCorp Health System. The Spotsylvania hospital is part of the national HCA chain.

More than half of all cancer patients receive radiation as part of their treatments. Typically, a patient visits a center five days a week for about six weeks. With each visit, the patient receives a dose of radiation directed at the tumor.

Supporters argued that the new centers would reduce travel time for patients.

Stafford and Spotsylvania hospital officials also pointed out that they want to offer stereotactic radiosurgery, an advanced technology not available at the Cancer Center of Virginia.

"Stereotactic radiosurgery is using radiation like a laser beam," said Dr. Jeffrey Poffenbarger, a Fredericksburg neurosurgeon. "You use a series of devices to shape that radiation."

Board members said they sympathized with patients, many of whom had to travel long distances on crowded roads over many days for treatment.

They also recognized the rapid growth of the region and the higher-than-average cancer rates.

Also, the state's new health plan estimates that the region will need an additional 1.5 accelerators by 2011.

But some board members questioned whether the region could support the additional accelerators.

They pointed out that the Cancer Center of Virginia has excess capacity, and that the number of treatments done there has remained constant over the last four years.

Would the Cancer Center of Virginia remain a viable business if it lost a share of its patients to the new centers, they asked.

"We're recommending too many too soon," said board member Donald Sandridge.

A majority of members disagreed with Sandridge, however. The vote to recommend approval of the Stafford proposal was 11-7. The Spotsylvania vote was 10-8. The vote for the Culpeper center was unanimous.

Jim Hall: 540/374-5433
Email: jhall@freelancestar.com