The Queen's Medical Center will open a $6 million cancer center on Nov. 7, hoping to improve patient care and services and also alleviating the need for some cancer patients to travel to the Mainland for care.

The new 21,000-square-foot facility pulls together the various parts of cancer care together in a single location within the Queen's medical campus, in effect bringing services to outpatients instead of having them transit halls to take tests, receive treatment or seek counseling. The need for bringing together the fragments was suggested by The Governor's Blue Ribbon Panel on Cancer Care in Hawaii five years ago.

"It's a plus for people who have to go through this," said Jackie Young, American Cancer Society of Hawai'i Pacific Inc. chief staff officer for mission and member of the Blue Ribbon Panel.

The opening comes as an increasing number of cancer cases are diagnosed in Hawai'i each year as the population ages. Currently the American Cancer Society estimates 6,020 people are diagnosed with the disease each year; that's expected to double in the next 30 years as more of Hawai'i's population reaches ages 60 to 79, years when cancer incidence typically increases.

But the opening of the Queen's center along with the development of new, larger facilities for the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i means there will be more treatment options available in the state. The Cancer Research Center, which focuses on research and providing therapies under investigation, plans to have an outpatient treatment center as part of its $200 million center.

Queen's earlier this year brought in a surgical system useful in prostate cancer treatment and other surgeries where a robotically assisted surgery that's less invasive is beneficial. Previously, people needed to go to the Mainland for such robotic surgery systems.

The new center at Queen's also houses the state's only TomoTherapy radiation device that is one of about 70 in the U.S. The machine resembles a CT-scanner and is capable of producing 3-D images of tumors, allowing doctors to perform highly precise radiation treatments.

The center also is getting a new machine known as a positron emission tomography/computed tomography that helps oncologists view metabolic hot spots and learn more about patients' conditions.

The center also brings into the single area cancer screening, a laboratory, genetic testing, chemotherapy, nutritional counseling and nontraditional treatments such as massage and acupuncture.

Queen's center will also feature its year-old patient navigator program that's caught the eye of some Mainland hospitals. The staff of three navigators help guide, educate and counsel cancer patients and family members through the treatment process, which can be a thicket of medical terms, financial strains and emotional turns.

The navigators' work ranges from making sure patients' baby sitter and transportation needs are covered to setting up appointments and coordinating services.

While Queen's doesn't charge for navigator services or get insurance reimbursements for it, the hospital said it appears the program may pay for itself in lowering missed appointments by patients, bringing down patient stays in intensive care units and cutting down patient visits to emergency rooms.

"We're setting it up to bring as much to the patient as possible," said Dr. Diane Thompson, cancer center director.

Queen's estimates it treats about 43 percent of all O'ahu cancer patients who need inpatient care and last year recorded almost 23,000 outpatient visits.

Cancer care is "a significant part of Queen's," said Art Ushijima, Queen's president and chief executive officer. "We certainly see ourselves as the leader for cancer care in Hawai'i."

Ushijima said the center will continue to work with the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i, which Queen's sees as a complementary research component to its hospital services. Nonetheless, some clinical trials are offered through Queen's.

The research center wants to include a building for physicians in its project, which is scheduled to open in Kaka'ako as early as 2010. The outpatient clinic may have more and better access to new treatments in Phase 2 trials, the second step of testing with humans for new drugs or treatments that's required before Federal Drug Administration approval.

Typically several hundred patients are involved in such tests before Phase 3 trials, which involve thousands of participants.

"What they (Queen's) are going to be providing are the services that patients require," said Sharon Shigemasa, Cancer Research Center spokeswoman. "Our mission is to do research and provide the most current types of therapies that are under investigation."

Reach Greg Wiles at gwiles@honoluluadvertiser.com.