© 2024 WGLT
A public service of Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

OSF's Cancer Institute will have a Breakthrough Treatment Center. Here's what that means

OSF HealthCare Chief Operating Officer Dr. Mike Cruz discusses the Breakthrough Treatment Center as part of the OSF HealthCare Institute during a news conference Tuesday outside the institute's construction site in Peoria.
Joe Deacon
/
WCBU
OSF HealthCare Chief Operating Officer Dr. Mike Cruz discusses the Breakthrough Treatment Center as part of the OSF HealthCare Institute during a news conference Tuesday outside the institute's construction site in Peoria.

The state-of-the-art OSF HealthCare Cancer Institute set to open early next year in Peoria will include a Breakthrough Treatment Center, aimed at providing broader access to advanced care and innovative research.

In a collaboration with Origin, an organization aimed at broadening access to promising therapies, the Breakthrough Treatment Center intends to provide pathways to new technologies, groundbreaking developments, and world-class physicians.

“The OSF Breakthrough Treatment Center will give our patients access to some of the most promising, hard-to-access clinical trials throughout the world. These include medical advances and research from global areas as well as here in the United States,” said Dr. Mike Cruz, OSF’s Chief Operating Officer.

“These advances in research will not only focus on new, promising cancer therapies, but also early detection and the most deadly cancers. These advances in collaboration with Origin will help the OSF HealthCare Cancer Institute become a destination of world-class cancer care, while providing a seamless cancer journey for patients and their families in these communities.”

OSF and Origin announced the Breakthrough Treatment Center on Tuesday during a news conference outside the Cancer Institute construction site.

“We've all been touched by someone who has gone through cancer treatments, and it's heart-wrenching to watch and hear about those individuals who have run out of cancer treatment options,” said OSF HealthCare president Sister Diane Marie McGrew, who described her own battle with reoccurring ovarian cancer.

“Through this work, and our collaboration with Origin, we can hopefully bring that to an end and be able to bring options and hope to those cancer patients, who today have very little hope. The OSF Breakthrough Treatment Center will truly bring hope home for people with late-stage cancer.”

Cosmo Smith, Origin’s managing partner, said OSF’s culture is “perfectly suited” for collaborating in a new era of medical discovery.

“OSF and Origin have already begun to create significant strides particularly in the areas of early detection of pancreatic, lung, and ovarian cancer – some of the more difficult to treat cancers, if they're found too late,” said Smith.

Dr. James McGee, the medical director for OSF’s oncology service line and a radiation oncologist at St. Francis Medical Center, said the partnership with Origin opens doors to testing new therapies and cancer control tools, with both treatment and prevention in mind.

“A lot of times this has been only available in large, urban settings or around inner-city academic facilities,” said McGee. “We're really grateful for this opportunity to bring this type of access, opportunity and work to the real world, to the people of rural America.”

OSF Chief Executive Officer Bob Sehring said the significance of the Breakthrough Treatment Center will reach beyond Greater Peoria.

“Frankly, the impact will be felt across our ministry,” he said. “It will be felt in the communities that we've been called to serve, and will be felt well beyond that as well.”

An OSF spokesperson said construction on the $237 million, 180,000-square foot Cancer Institute is on schedule, and the first treatments there are expected to start in early 2024.

Contact Joe at jdeacon@ilstu.edu.
Related Content