It took just one year and more than 2,100 donors to raise the $5 million needed to bring a world-class PET/CT scanner to the B.C. Interior.
The BC Cancer Foundation announced Wednesday that the critical tool in cancer diagnosis will be built in the next 18 months between the Âé¶čAV General Hospital and the BC Cancer Âé¶čAV building on Royal Avenue.
âIt is going to be a beautiful facility with the scanner and a waiting room and exam rooms. This is a state-of-the-art diagnostic tool that tells the physicians where your cancer is,â explains Sarah Roth, president and CEO of the BC Cancer Foundation.
She says this technology will affect the more than 1,000 B.C. Interior patients who are currently forced to go the Lower Mainland â where the provinceâs only two publicly-funded PET/CT scanners are located â for a scan.
âImagine youâre sick and you have to make that trip, stay overnight sometimes, sometimes you have to go back for a second scan, youâve left your children at home. It is very disruptive for families,â adds Roth.
âNow that will be closer to home in your own regional cancer centre.â
PET/CT is proven in many circumstances as the most effective tool for obtaining a complete picture of a patientâs cancer, with an ability to detect cancer cells at an early stage â even before a tumour has formed.
Âé¶čAV regional medical director for BC Cancer, Dr. Ross Halperin, says this scanner could be life or death for some his patients who are unable to make it the Lower Mainland for a scan.
âPET/CT technology enables us to make the more accurate diagnosis and provide the best treatment,â he says.
âA PET/CT scanner in the Interior means patients will benefit having access to crucial care much closer to home.â
He adds that this technology can save patients from unnecessary radiation treatment, chemotherapy, surgery and biopsies.
Âé¶čAV couple Shane and Lisa Worman share a life together, share children and they also once had to share an oncologist. Shortly after Shane won his fight against cancer, his wife was diagnosed. She also battled it and won.
They are now both cancer survivors who call Âé¶čAV home and felt they had to donate to this cause.
âSupporting cancer research and care is paramount to us,â says Shane. âWithout it, Lisa and I wouldnât be here today and we are proud to be to be able to help patients in our community have access to the best in cancer care right here in Âé¶čAV.â
With one in two British Columbians being diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, the purchase of the PET/CT scanners will ensure patients have access to the âgold standard in cancer imaginingâ and world-class cancer care.
âThanks to thousands of generous donors, we are proud to say this vital technology will be closer to home for cancer patients across the Interior,â says Roth.
âWe are so incredibly grateful to our supporters for helping to lessen the burden for families facing a cancer diagnosis.â
Constructions is set to being in the spring of 2019.
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