Central DuPage Hospital opens cancer center

Cancer patients can get comprehensive care at a new center in Warrenville starting today, without ever having to set foot into a hospital.

The Central DuPage Hospital Cancer Center combines all the outpatient diagnostic, treatment and support services that were previously scattered over multiple locations at the hospital and elsewhere.

The design of the center was based in part on a questionnaire of employees, who requested a "healing" and "calming" atmosphere.

Natural lighting and a rooftop garden and a ground-floor healing garden attest to that, said Sandy Berger, interim manager of oncology.

"It's absolutely beautiful," she said. "It looks like a spa retreat, with flowers in glass tile niches. It's so tranquil that you don't have to go to the main hospital and be around all the other patients. It's not as medicinal as a hospital."

The center combines a radiation and treatment center with an imaging and diagnostic center, including seed therapy and PET/CT imaging.

Previously, radiation therapy was outsourced outside the hospital in Winfield, and the PET/CT was in a portable trailer in the parking lot two days a week.

The center, on Weaver Parkway at Route 88 and designed by RTKL Associates, will also offer educational and support services such as a social worker, nutritionist, and exercise and yoga classes.

It will be combined with the adjacent CDH Proton Center, which is expected to offer the first proton therapy in the state, touted for having fewer side effects, starting in November. Together the facilities are projected to treat 40,000 patients annually.

The new facility follows a trend in hospitals to centralize scattered services. Edward Hospital also offers comprehensive cancer care at its centers in Naperville, which opened in 2005, and Plainfield, which opened this year. Combined visits have increased 80 percent in five years, to an estimated 42,000 this year.