The Cancer Foundation of Saskatchewan’s initial campaign is focused on a machine required for every patient needing radiation.

The foundation has set a three-million dollar goal to buy two C-T Simulators.

The two still in use are ten years old, subject to breakdowns and down time while awaiting replacement parts meaning the cancellation of appointments.

Dr. Jon Tonita also says technology has advanced greatly in the device responsible for planning treatments.

Their scans pinpoint the location of tumors to make sure the risk to healthy tissue and organs is minimized during radiation.

Tonita says the images are essentially four-dimensional as they can track a tumor’s minute movements as the patient breathes during the scan.

Breast cancer survivor Karen Allen is telling her story as the campaign gets started.

The former provincial government Assistant Deputy Minister who is in remission says her life changed the day she was diagnosed in June 2007 and has lost three family members to cancer.

Allen marked the 12-year anniversary of her first chemotherapy treatment to thank her medical team saying she could never fully repay her debt of gratitude.

She says her C-T Simulator scan was an early step toward a safe treatment and is grateful it was fully focused on the tumor.

Allen points out future treatments will be even safer with the new simulators to be placed in Saskatoon and Regina.

Tonita estimates they will be used on about 25-hundred patients a year.

(CJWW)