NEWPORT BEACH : New Cancer Center to Be Dedicated

Hoag Hospital on Sunday will dedicate its new, $22-million cancer outpatient center, one of two major cancer facilities scheduled to open in Orange County during the next 15 months.

Hoag’s facility, the Patty and George Hoag Cancer Center, will expand the hospital’s existing cancer treatment equipment and services, consolidating them into a three-story, 65,000-square-foot, free-standing building.

UCI Medical Center in Orange has a similar cancer facility planned to open next year.

The new Hoag center, which a hospital officials said will open by mid-October, was financed through contributions from hospital support groups, businesses, individuals, hospital employees and other organizations.

In addition to expanding the current Hoag cancer services, the new center will introduce a 1,700-square-foot radiation therapy area. That facility will include a high-powered linear accelerator, which uses X-ray energy to treat deep tumors while minimizing potential side effects. The machine is one of only three such accelerators in the United States, said Sharon MacDonald, the center’s administrative director.

The center will offer expanded cancer treatment, research, education and support services while making facilities more convenient for patients and their families, MacDonald said. It will enable Hoag, which currently treats 1,300 new cancer patients each year, to accommodate 25% more patients, she said.

UCI’s $12-million, four-story building is scheduled to open by fall of 1991. The 52,000-square-foot center will expand programs under way at the medical center’s interim cancer facility, while tripling its patient capacity, an official said.

St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, during the next three to five years, will evaluate the 25,000-square-foot cancer center it opened in 1987, which may lead to additions to the building.