The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation kicked off its Cancer Awareness month Wednesday. In celebration of the month, the foundation received a total of $890,057 from the Northern Cancer Fund. The funds were collected from individual donations and through fundraising events.
The Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute received the highest amount at $500,000 for more research on High Intensity Focused Ultrasound, a surgical method that uses ultrasounds to cook benign tumours from the outside of the body.
Previously, the hospital could only provide patients with a mammogram and an ultrasound. They would have to leave the community to have a breast MRI. With the new funding, the hospital can now do all three steps at one location.
"We can run a world class breast MRI program," Panu said. "We now have that trifecta. When we have a problem solving issue, we can do a breast MRI. In cases where we need to find if the patient has a cancer in the other breast, we can do an MRI."
There’s a misconception that the centre purchased a large new machine, but it’s actually a small coil that fits onto the breast, she said. The money will also go toward training the centre’s technologists.
Glenn Craig, president and CEO of the Health Sciences Foundation, said the new MRI will fill in the gap in their cancer care services.
"Women were having to go out of the community," Craig said. "With this investment, thanks to community dollars, we have that full complement of services. That’s a pretty tremendous impact."
He added that he is also looking forward to the research into HIFU.
Panu, who is also one of the principle researchers for HIFU, said the procedure works with the MRI to guide the waves and burn the tissues of the tumour, making it smaller. By burning the tissues, it relieves some of the patient’s symptoms.
"They basically walk away with a little bit of redness on their skin rather than making an incision on the patient," she said. "Our first patient went back to work at 8:15 in the morning. That’s not pretty typical for surgeries."
While the hospital is using HIFU for surgeries, there’s still a few years to go before the procedure is more common, she said.
The Linda Buchan Centre received the second highest amount from the Northern Cancer Fund with $185, 443 for a breast MRI program.
The following organizations also received funding:
- The Thunder Bay and District Breast Cancer Support Group received $5,500 for its program
- Fort Frances Riverside Healthcare Facilities received $24,989 for improved equipment
- $111,450 for an MRI guided prostate biopsy system
- Meno Ya Win Health Care in Sioux Lookout received $18, 675 for chemotherapy equipment
- $44, 000 for prostate and awareness campaign
