Radiation Therapy Center Opening
Site Is Near Fauquier

By Christy Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 4, 2007

Bristow resident Mary Bademian, 73, and her friend drove around western Prince William County one recent Saturday looking for a new cancer treatment center they had read about. Bademian was recovering from a lumpectomy and knew she would require further radiation treatment.

Her primary doctors, her surgeon, her oncologist -- even her operation -- were all located in Fairfax. The idea of having to trek back there five times a week for 32 days for follow-up treatments was daunting.

Bademian found what she was looking for: the Cancer Center at Lake Manassas. The center, at Route 29 and Lake Manassas Drive in Gainesville, is a new $11.7 million outpatient facility built by private, nonprofit Prince William and Fauquier hospitals.

Deborah Jones, president of the Prince William County Greater Manassas Chamber of Commerce, can sympathize with Bademian's plight. Now a seven-year breast cancer survivor, she had to travel from her home in Independent Hill to Fairfax for daily treatments, a one-hour trip each way.

"It is truly a time in your life when you don't want to deal with that," said Jones, 50, who helped raise nearly $2 million for the center.

Although both Prince William and Fauquier hospitals offer cancer patients chemotherapy treatments, those who need radiation would have to travel as far as Charlottesville to the University of Virginia's Moser Radiation Therapy Center or the Radiation Oncology Center at Inova Loudoun Hospital until now, said radiation oncologist Sanjeev K. Aggarwal, medical director of the Cancer Center.

"It was determined that there was a need for this sort of facility in that region for several reasons," said Lucy Caldwell, the Northern Virginia representative for the Virginia Department of Health, which approved the center in 2002. "It was recognized that the population of that region was growing at a rapid rate, and just the fact that there is an increasing use in radiation therapy" for more types of cancers demonstrated the need, she said.

The Gainesville facility will begin treating patients during the week of Feb. 12.

More than 35,000 Virginians will have some form of cancer diagnosed this year, according to the American Cancer Society.

In Prince William County, in a recent five-year period an average of 450.8 people per 100,000 residents received a cancer diagnosis each year.

The incidence rate in Fauquier is closer to 401.8 people, according to ACS statistics.

"There is definitely a need here," said Aggarwal, who has consulted with more than 15 patients in a recent week. He expects the center will treat 15 patients a day by March, and "wouldn't be surprised" if that number grew to 20 patients a day by August.

The center will have state-of-the-art technology designed to pinpoint areas for successful treatment, while sparing normal tissue and organs from radiation and helping to avoid side effects, Aggarwal said.

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy allows the radiation beams to be fitted precisely to the tumor or adjusted for higher or lower doses.

The facility also will use high-resolution imaging to create accurate treatment plans. The images can be upgraded with each visit to ensure that the radiation beam is accurately targeting a patient's tumor that may have moved slightly.

Space and new therapies will be added to the center as the practice grows.

In addition to the high-tech equipment, the center features meeting space for support groups, a lobby area with natural lighting and a stone chimney with gas fireplace to help reduce patient anxiety, Aggarwal said.

"I walked in and said, 'This is fantastic. It looks like a ski lodge. How relaxing can you be?' The atmosphere is amazing," said Bademian. The landscape paintings and colored walls were "just soothing things. That is what you need when your body is a little debilitated," she said.

The center's staff will make additional appointments at other facilities and assist patients with other tasks.

"We just want to make their life easier and give them the best treatment we can," Aggarwal said. "They are simple goals that we want to build this practice on."

Bademian is already sold. Between the technology, the staff and location, she said, "it makes it much easier for me to go into this with a positive attitude."