30 years for the Tom Baker Cancer Centre
Posted Nov 26, 2011 3:56 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Tom Baker Cancer Centre celebrates it’s 30th anniversary.
Since opening it’s doors in 1981, the treatment facility remains Calgary’s only cancer centre in the city, treating nearly 20,000 patients a year.
In the past thirty years, the number of cancer cases has more then doubled due to Calgary’s growing and aging population.
Even with the rising numbers, their five year survival rate for all invasive cancers has increased from 46 per cent to over 60.
Medical Director Peter Craighead says the whole community should feel proud of this milestone.
“We represent Calgary in a way, in the rest of the sea of despair of cancer patients across the country and we’ve done good job. I think that Calgary can also stand tall and feel proud that they have a cancer centre like the one we have,” he says.
Caylee Dahl was diagnosed with a rare appendix cancer and is one of the facility’s survivors.
In March 2010, she underwent the centre’s leading edge procedure known as ‘hot chemo.’ The treatment involves removing the tumour and applying hot chemotherapy treatment to kill any remaining cancer cells.
Dahl is now cancer free and says she feels better then ever. “I credit everything to them. I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for this surgery. There’s no other treatment that would have been as effective for me…so it’s fabulous.”
The centre receives around 8,000 new patients a year.
