SEQUIM — This year’s Harvest of Hope Wine & Dinner Gala on Sept. 27 will raise funds to purchase equipment for breast cancer surgeries that would make Olympic Medical Center the first in the state to offer the cutting-edge technology.
The $175,000 3D Clarix Breast Specimen Imager gives surgeons real-time, 360-degree clarity on tumor margins during surgery to ensure all of the abnormal tissue has been removed.
That reduces the need for repeat surgeries.
“It will revolutionize breast cancer surgery here,” said Dr. Sandra Tatro, a cancer surgeon at OMC.
The Olympic Medical Center Foundation will host the 23rd annual Harvest of Hope Wine & Dinner Gala at 5 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Guy Cole Event Center, 202 N. Blake Ave., Sequim.
Doors will open at 5 p.m. and dinner will be served at 5:45 p.m.
Attendees at the fundraiser, presented by Sound Community Bank and Arrow Marine Group, will have an opportunity to help raise money through the purchase of raffle tickets as well as live and silent auction items.
Tickets are $145 per person.
Harvest of Hope is dedicated to raising money to provide services, programs and equipment to cancer patients being treated at the OMC Cancer Center in Sequim.
This year, proceeds will go to upgraded technology that would put OMC in the forefront of the technology used during cancer surgeries. Purchased primarily for breast cancer treatment, it also would be used in surgeries for colon, ovarian and other types of tumors.
Researched and requested by OMC’s medical staff, the technology would replace a machine that is now a decade old and obsolete, Tatro said.
In the past, a pathologist checked tumor margins and let surgeons know if all had been removed.
“We need to be able to look at specimens in real time to reduce the number of take-backs,” Tatro said.
The new technology “may even be better than a pathologist,” Tatro said, since it will scan a three-dimensional image that surgeons can manipulate during the surgery to look all around the tumor to ensure all of it has been removed.
Presently, the national re-excision average is one in four women, according to information from Nick Seedorf, program management office director. The new technology has the potential to get that rate down to one in 10, he said in an email.
“For patients, that means one surgery instead of two, fewer miles traveled, less time away from family and work, and faster healing,” Seedorf said.
Said Tatro: “One of the benefits on the (North Olympic) Peninsula is that we can take care of these patents locally and they don’t have to travel. It really shows that people can get excellent care here without having to travel to Seattle.”
To buy tickets, or for more information, see the OMC Foundation website at omhf.org, phone 360-417-7144 or go to the office at 1015 Georgiana St., Port Angeles.
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Leah Leach is a former executive editor for Peninsula Daily News.
