Clermont Chamber President Matt Van Sant, on left, throws up the ribbon during a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Clermont County Cancer Center on Oct. 9, 2015. To the left of Van Sant are Sen. Joe Uecker, Cancer Center CEO Payal Patel, Dr. Prakash Patel and Clermont County Commissioner Ed Humphrey, along with center staff members.

Clermont Chamber President Matt Van Sant, on left, throws up the ribbon during a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Clermont County Cancer Center on Oct. 9, 2015. To the left of Van Sant are Sen. Joe Uecker, Cancer Center CEO Payal Patel, Dr. Prakash Patel and Clermont County Commissioner Ed Humphrey, along with center staff members.
By Kelly Doran
Editor

The Clermont County Cancer Center, which held its grand opening on Oct. 9, has made a rare, specialized radiation machine accessible to local patients.

“Our machine is the Elekta Versa HD. It is the first machine of its kind in Cincinnati,” said Payal Patel, CEO of the Clermont Center, along with the Adams County and Scioto County Cancer Centers.

Payal Patel wanted to open a center in Clermont County because the Adams County Center got a lot of patients from Clermont and she feels Clermont was an under-served area.

The Center’s slogan is advanced technology with a personal touch.

“We want to interact with our patients one-on-one but we also want to make sure they have a fighting chance of surviving,” Payal Patel said.

The center opened in March and everything has been going well so far, but Payal Patel hopes to serve more patients soon. Many of her patients have mentioned how much they like the location of this center.

The machine provides radiation treatments three times faster with fewer side effects and better outcomes, said Dr. Prakash Patel, a radiation oncologist at the center and Payal Patel’s father.

“We’re very excited to have the newest technology in the area,” Prakash Patel said.

The Clermont Chamber of Commerce is very concerned with the quality of life in the county, said President Matt Van Sant, so he is happy to have the center in the county.

“We’re very grateful for this investment,” Van Sant told the Patels during the grand opening.

Sen. Joe Uecker echoed Van Sant’s sentiments, saying that he is very happy the center brought this treatment to Clermont County.

The Elekta Versa HD also has a Hexapod EVO treatment couch, which rotates the patient so that the radiation gets on exactly the right part of the body that it needs to, said Holli Seesholtz, a therapist.

The machine is one of two in Ohio. It is brand new and has only been available for about a year, Payal Patel said.

The precision of the machine saves healthy tissue that could otherwise be subject to radiation and it decreases side effects, Seesholtz said.

“Because of the accuracy of the treatments, the side effects you used to see five years ago you do not see,” Prakash Patel said.

The machine does not reduce the number of treatments a patients needs, just the side effects, Prakash Patel said.

In addition, the machine is such high quality that if one minor part does not work, the whole machine doesn’t work. Seesholtz is grateful for that because the therapists do not want to use the machine if everything isn’t working exactly as it should.

The Cancer Center is located at 4402 Hartman Lane in Batavia. For more information, call 513-735-4442 or go to clermontcountycancercenter.com.