Norton Healthcare Receives State Approval to Build $9.7 Million Cancer Radiation Center on its Downtown Campus

LOUISVILLE, KY.: (April 16, 2008): Norton Healthcare received approval today from the Kentucky Certificate of Need Division to build a 14,400-square-foot, $9.7 million cancer radiation center on its downtown campus. The center will feature leading-edge technology to provide radiation therapy treatments for adult and pediatric tumors. It will primarily serve patients in Jefferson County along with those in Nelson, Hardin, Bullitt, Oldham and surrounding counties in Kentucky, along with patients in several Southern Indiana counties, including those in Clark, Floyd, Harrison and Scott.

Plans call for the center, part of Norton Cancer Institute, to be built on the northwest corner of Floyd & Broadway streets. Subject to approvals by all appropriate city governmental entities, the center will require the removal of two existing facilities: a 5,000-square-foot building at 233 E. Broadway St. that houses the Norton Healthcare corporate human resources function, and a vacant 12,400-square-foot building just west of the 233 building at 223 E. Broadway. Construction would begin around September 2008, with the one-story radiation center opening in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Norton Healthcare filed the Certificate of Need application for the radiation center in November 2007.

Other key aspects of today’s announcement include:

• The center will include the most sophisticated technology available anywhere in the world, including a $3 million linear accelerator from Varian Medical Systems, the world’s leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions. Norton Cancer Institute’s new Varian linear accelerator will incorporate the Novalis Tx® Stereotactic Radiosurgery System along with IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy) and IGRT(Image Guided Radiation Therapy) capabilities. The technology will allow Norton Cancer Institute to offer faster, more precise, more powerful and more comfortable radiation therapy treatments for its patients, with the ability to treat deep-seated tumors more effectively while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. This new technology, developed by Varian and BrainLAB, will allow Norton Cancer Institute-affiliated neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists to jointly plan the most aggressive and effective treatment for brain tumors. Also, because of the equipment’s advanced capabilities, the new technology will dramatically reduce treatment times, adding to patient comfort and convenience. Among the handful of health care organizations to have the Novalis system operational, the closest to Louisville is the Duke University School of Medicine.

• The center will treat malignant cancers and certain non-malignant tumors, including brain, lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, stomach, pancreatic, kidney and others. The center expands Norton’s capabilities to treat pediatric cancers, and Norton will add a radiation oncologist with specialized training in pediatric oncology. Aaron Spalding, M.D., will train at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital before joining Norton Cancer Institute in January 2009. The pediatric section of the new center has been modeled after St. Jude’s new radiation center, with input from its radiation oncologists.

• The center will include an outdoor meditation garden, a quiet area for patients, family and staff to meditate and enjoy the outdoors while staying close to treatment areas.

• The radiation center will be connected by pedway to the pedway system serving the entire Norton Healthcare downtown campus, including patients and families at Norton Hospital, Kosair Children’s Hospital and the Norton Healthcare Pavilion.

• The center will have the capacity to eventually expand to five floors to meet growing health care needs for cancer or other areas of need. The overall facility architect is Karlsberger, a nationally recognized health care architecture firm based in Columbus, Ohio. Architection of Louisville, a national leader in the design and construction of radiation and medical oncology facilities, will design the radiation center. The construction manager has not yet been selected.

The Need for the New Radiation Center
The center’s primary service area has cancer incidence and death rates that are above the Kentucky state averages and significantly above the national averages. It will provide radiation therapy services for patients of Norton Hospital, Kosair Children’s Hospital and Norton Cancer Institute-affiliated physicians, among others, and will complement the chemotherapy services available on the downtown campus and the radiation therapy services available at Norton Suburban Hospital. The need for radiation therapy services in the center’s service area is expected to increase by at least 8 percent per year over the next several years.

"Sophisticated radiation therapy services are a vital tool in the fight against cancer," said Don A. Stevens, M.D., medical director of Norton Cancer Institute. "Our ability to bring this state-of-the-art technology to Norton’s downtown campus will have a life-changing impact for adult and pediatric patients and their families. It complements the existing sophisticated radiation therapy services we currently offer on the Norton Suburban Hospital campus."

Norton Healthcare’s $100 Million Commitment to Fight Cancer
The new center is part of Norton Healthcare’s $100 million commitment to fight cancer in Metro Louisville and beyond and to expand the health care services available on Norton’s downtown campus.

"The new radiation center will expand the comprehensive services provided by Norton Cancer Institute and is yet another in a long list of new specialists, programs, services and facilities that we have added in the last year for cancer treatment, early detection and prevention, education, clinical research and survivorship," said Russell F. Cox, chief operating officer of Norton Healthcare. "In January 2007, when we announced our $100 million commitment to fight cancer, we had a long list of new resources and tactics that we planned to implement to address our area’s daunting cancer statistics. We have followed through on that commitment to the letter, including this new radiation center and the recent purchase of a $1 million Mobile Cancer Prevention Center to take cancer screenings out into our community, among many others."

About Norton Cancer Institute
Treating more than half of the cancer cases in Louisville, Norton Cancer Institute (NCI) is the leading provider of comprehensive cancer care in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. NCI’s team of specialists is dedicated to offering patients confidence and hope through a multi-disciplinary approach to advanced cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and survivorship. NCI offers the community specialists, services and programs not found elsewhere in the region, including a highly sophisticated cancer radiation center at Norton Suburban Hospital; two orthopaedic oncologists; a neurologic oncologist; da Vinci surgical system; and a new $1 million Mobile Cancer Prevention Center. NCI also provides extensive educational, physical and emotional support services for patients, as well as the opportunity to participate in variety of cancer research studies and clinical trials. NCI is designated by the American College of Surgeons (ACoS) as the only accredited Cancer Network in Kentucky and one of only 27 in the nation.