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New West Ashley facility fights breast cancer
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Dr. Lisa Baron, a radiologist, and her cancer surgeon husband, Paul, last year set out to battle breast cancer. The disease accounts for 32% of all female cancer cases in South Carolina and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among South Carolina women.
Between 1996 and 2001, breast cancer killed 3,519 South Carolina women, and the Palmetto State ranks 19th in the nation for breast cancer deaths, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
In the United States, breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women ages 20 to 59, according to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Since 1960, the incidence of breast cancer has increased about 2% a year.
The Barons sought to fight breast cancer not just on the medical but on the educational, psychological and social fronts. They said it was crucial that access to breast cancer screening overcome financial, geographic and cultural barriers, and be open to all women. They also believed their fight against the disease would be more efficient if women had the convenience of a number of different services under one roof.
Through private donations and grants from organizations like the American Cancer Society, the Barons raised nearly $1 million to start the Charleston Breast Center in West Ashley.
The independent, nonprofit facility provides mammograms, diagnosis, coordinated treatment, breast cancer education and psychosocial support for breast cancer victims and their families. It also performs community outreach initiatives and serves as a site for clinical trials. It is the state’s only such facility not affiliated with a hospital, Lisa Baron said.
When the Charleston Breast Center opened in mid-March, patients came through the doors almost immediately. The facility daily performs anywhere from 10 to 15 mammograms and is already booked through May for mammography screenings.
The center helps take up the breast-screening slack that resulted when Tricounty Radiology Associates in Mount Pleasant, which did about 15,000 mammograms a year, stopped performing the service in December. Tricounty cited a lack of digital mammography equipment space in the new facility it was moving to and competition from hospitals and women’s centers.
Community-based
The Charleston Breast Center’s seven-member staff includes two full-time doctors. However, oncologists, radiologists, therapists and other professionals throughout the tri-county medical community offer their services to the center.
The center has ties with community organizations like the Charleston branch of the Komen Foundation, which moved its office to the center, and with the West Ashley-based Center for Women. The Charleston Breast Center also works with all tri-county hospitals.
The center has embarked on two community outreach programs. One is aimed at black women, among whom the mortality rate from breast cancer is 32% higher than among white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The other, in which the center works with Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach Services Inc. on Johns Island, targets Hispanic women. Both initiatives seek to educate women about breast cancer.
Located at 1930 Charlie Hall Blvd., the center is near a Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority bus stop so that women without cars can still get to the center.
Baron urges women not to feel complacent if their mammogram does not detect breast cancer.
“Mammograms can’t find all cancer,” Baron pointed out. “That’s why women have a responsibility to take responsibility for their health care.”
That responsibility includes communicating with their health care providers, getting educated about breast cancer and avoiding smoking.
Dennis Quick covers health and wellness for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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