Northwestern Medicine completes Sage Cancer Center expansion, adds $2.95M radiation treatment machine

Northwestern Medicine has completed a $9.5 million expansion project at its Sage Cancer Center, located at the McHenry hospital.

The 10,000-square-foot addition includes an expanded waiting area, new space for patient consults with increased audio-visual capabilities and a new radiation treatment vault equipped with a state-of-the-art,
$2.95 million dollar linear accelerator, used for radiation treatments.

“The more we can offer a patient closer to home the better,” said Rena Zimmerman, medical director of radiation oncology at Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital.

The new technology in meeting rooms will allow for a patient’s treatment team to consult with experts throughout the medical system to come up with a treatment plan for the person. This means that patients won’t have to make the trip to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago for a specialist opinion on their case, Zimmerman said.

“We can connect to the downtown [location] and present the case to a bevy of specialists,” she said. “You will be getting the best possible treatment plan for you. ... This is a vast improvement, technologically.”

The linear accelerator produces the X-rays used to treat cancer. Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital’s linear accelerator is located in a room known as the “vault” which is a clean, modern-looking space with 6-foot-thick lead and concrete walls to protect people outside the room from the radiation the machine emits.

The door to the vault weighs 2,500 pounds and is full of lead, said John Hylton, director of operations in oncology at the center.

“There are 800 cubic yards of concrete in this vault, which equates out to 100 cement trucks [full],” Hylton said.

A brick accent wall highlights the new technology. The accelerator is a TrueBeam Radiotherapy system brand, made by Varian Medical Systems.

“Our goal with this room was really to make the TrueBeam a piece of artwork,” said Carley Paul, lead radiation therapist at the center. “I challenge anyone to go to another cancer center and find a vault that looks like this. ... We want the patients to come in, relax and focus on getting better.”

Most importantly, the machine provides the most advanced radiation technology available, Zimmerman said.

“We have to do it right the first time and every time,” Zimmerman said.

Doctors and other technicians can pinpoint the position of a cancerous tumor, and the accelerator can hone in on the cancerous area only, which saves other vital tissue nearby and helps reduce long-term side effects from the radiation, Zimmerman said.

The accelerator also can change the dose of radiation as it rotates to make sure the cancerous tumors receive high-dose beams and benign tissue doesn’t get as damaged, she said.

“This machine – which is a new capability for us on an accelerator – can deliver the radiation as it’s rotating around the machine,” she said. “It modulates, or changes, the intensity of the beam. It’s like painting the dose into the patient.”

Zimmerman has been in the field for more than 30 years and said she recalls earlier technology that was much more clunky and imprecise.

Accelerator technology has been around since the 1950s, she said. Zimmerman compared previous accelerator technology to an early Wright brothers airplane, whereas the new machine was akin to a high-tech military plane.

“I didn’t think I would live or work long enough to see this,” she said.

The newly expanded center will open Oct. 1