When you look around at critical treatment areas, you will see remarkable advances in technology and services offered at Danville Regional Medical Center. The opening of the new Heart Center of the Piedmont and the beginning of the open-heart surgery program last spring was an emphatic reminder that Danville Regional Medical Center is more than the community hospital of years ago.

Take oncology for example. Stewart Sharp, MC is excited about the progress being made in current treatments. "We have a variety of new medicines that, when combined with chemotherapy, are highly effective in treating such cancers as chronic myeloid leukemia," he said.

"We're now able to identify targets that are unique to certain cancers, and then we can suppress or attack the receptors or enzymes on which they thrive. One example is our work on Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), a hormone that helps support blood vessels. Since Tumors must recruit a blood supply to provide the nutrients and oxygen required to grow, we're now inhibiting production of VEGF in the body, which in turn inhibits tumor growth."

Dr. Sharp also noted that while it is clearly desirable to kill all cancer cells, sometimes that goal just is not achievable. "Sometimes, though, we can keep them from growing and suppress their spread," he said. "If we can convert cancer from a progressive, fatal disease to a chronic, controllable process through combinations of old and new therapies, then we can provide patients with not only a longer life, but a better quality of life as well.

Neurosurgery is widely recognized as a hallmark of a leading medical center. Excellent surgeons bring this specialty to patients at Danville Regional Medical Center.

Joel Singer, MC, PhD and Nicholas Poulos, MC are participating in a national study on bone grafts in spinal operations that shows great promise. Instead of using a bone graft from the hip, a sometimes painful procedure, the physicians are using a substance that encourages bone development, called Bone Morphogenic Protein (BMP). This promises to be an extremely effective and revolutionary new device in the treatment of spinal problems, and assisting in fusion.

Another of the advanced techniques performed at Danville Regional Medical Center is intracavity chemotherapy, in which medicine is placed in the brain at the specific site where a tumor has been removed.

"Often the brain does not respond as we'd like to traditional chemotherapy," said Dr. Singer, "But this technique is showing great promise.

"I have a deep interest in helping relieve pain in cancer patients," he said. "For example, the elderly often experience compression fractures that are very debilitating. We're now able to give them relief through a morphine pump, ending needless suffering.

"And we're also using pumps to inject baclofen, a medication that relieves spasms, cramping, and muscle tightness, directly into the spinal canal, continued Dr. Singer. "This is having excellent results on patients with multiple sclerosis, those with head or spinal injuries, even cerebral palsy patients." Some of these results come as part of clinical trials, which aren't always available to patients in communities the size of Danville.

Experimental techniques are less common in the field of orthopedics, another specialty in which Danville Regional Medical Center is fortunate to have outstanding physicians.

Mark Hermann, MD says that in orthopedics "we want to make sure that the procedures which are proven in national medical centers are available to our patients at Danville Regional Medical Center."

One of these procedures is unicompartmental arthroscopy, in which the entire knee joint isn't replaced. "We see if either the inside or outside half can be preserved," said Dr. Hermann, "and it can in about 1 in 15 patients. When it's possible, we can leave some ligaments in place, causing the patient less pain and improving recovery times."

Orthopedic surgeons at CDRMC have made arthroscopy common in procedures that used to require open surgery. Arthroscopy is minimally invasive with tiny incisions and significantly quicker recovery times.

All of these procedures in oncology, neurosurgery, and orthopedics - as well as open-heart surgery - are available to patients right now in the Dan River Region. They're convenient to family and friends - and conclusive evidence that indeed Danville Regional Medical Center is providing healthcare excellence close to home.