Web Posted: 09/02/2008 2:33 CDT

Cancer facilities in S.A. seen as cutting-edge

Wendy Rigby - KENS 5 Eyewitness News

San Antonio 's medical community is booming with thousands of new jobs and dozens of new facilities.

When it comes to cancer care, patients from South Texas are now able to get world-class, cutting-edge therapy without having to leave home.

Mary Sumner is a fighter and is determined to do what it takes to battle a recent cancer diagnosis.

"I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on the liver. And it was quite large," she said.

Two rounds of conventional chemotherapy failed to attack the aggressive Stage 4 disease, so doctors at South Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics (START) placed the 85-year-old on an experimental targeted drug that showed amazing impact in just a couple of weeks.

Dr. Anthony Tolcher, an medical oncologist with START, says San Antonio has seen a great increase in early cancer drug development over the past 15 years and that's fueling great care.

"It's going to have new cancer centers that form (other clinics in San Antonio ). There's a lot of opportunities for patients to participate in clinical trials. And to really get world-class care right here in San Antonio without having to go elsewhere," said Tolcher.

A great example of San Antonio's growing cancer community is the new Start Center for Cancer Care, slated to open in the medical center in just a few short months.

It's a four-story 120,000 square-foot building dedicated entirely to cancer care. The facility will be a one-stop destination for patients who need imaging, medical therapy, radiation and the hope offered by experimental treatments.

"We all tend to think of cancer as this terrible disease. We sometimes don't know how much progress is being made and how much research actually goes on in our own hometown," said Tolcher.

State health statistics project cancer will strike 5,869 people in Bexar County in 2008.

It's a disease that will claim the lives of more than 2,300 people in Bexar County with lung, colon, breast and prostate cancers being the most common forms.

Sumner says it's difficult to measure how cancer has changed her life.

"It's made a great impact. It really has," she said. "You take stock of your life."