Cancer patients at Christiana Care once faced a dizzying journey. They went to one place for their screening, another for treatment, another for rehabilitation.
 
Those services are no longer scattered. Instead, they're all under one roof.
 
An expansion at Christiana Care's Helen F. Graham Cancer Center has tripled its size to almost 200,000 square feet. Patients will find that the center has the aesthetic feel of a spa and the services of a superstore, with mammographies, MRIs, radiation, chemotherapy and physical therapy all provided at the same site.
 
The expansion was built at its projected budget of $45 million, with $38 million for the building and an additional $7 million for technological equipment, which included three state-of-the-art scanners. Christiana Care financed the project through its capital budget.
 
Dr. Nicholas Petrelli, the medical director of the Graham center, said patients now won't have to leave Delaware for their cancer treatment and the expansion will help "attract quality researchers and physicians and allow us to get more grants."
 
Since arriving in Delaware in August 2001 from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., Petrelli has spearheaded the expansion of the health system's cancer services.
 
The Graham center was again chosen in 2007 for the National Cancer Institute's Community Cancer Centers Program, which gives patients access to the latest, most advanced cancer care in the country. It was one of 14 centers nationwide designated for the program.
 
Delaware has an annual cancer incidence rate of 504 cases for every 100,000 people, according to the National Cancer Institute, a federally funded research and development center. The national rate is 468 cases per 100,000.
 
The Graham center now provides:

The west half of the center was transformed during the expansion, doubling in height to four floors partly to accommodate chemotherapy patients. Now, with chemotherapy spread over two floors, the Graham center can handle close to 7,000 patient visits a month. Before, the chemotherapy floors experienced a monthly volume of 2,900.
 
The scenery also has been enhanced in the chemotherapy suites with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook a landscaped rooftop garden, a large pond, a mural and fountains. The outdoor vantage for chemo patients was obstructed before the expansion.
 
"I think it's beautiful," said Mary Anne Bryan, a chemotherapy patient from Pennsville, N.J. "It's much more soothing and relaxing."
 
HKS Inc., which has won awards for health care design, was one of the contractors hired to create an aesthetic interior. The waiting areas throughout the complex are illuminated with shadow-box lighting. The registration rooms for breast cancer patients feature translucent sliding panel doors. Several patient waiting areas are designed with simulated sandblasted glass instead of clear glass.
 
As patients lie on their backs in one scanning room, they'll see a replica of seven constellations on the ceiling. It gives them something stimulating to look at before their procedure begins. A new breast MRI scanner is partially coated in pink.
 
"Their anxiety level is somewhat relieved because they see that it's more than just a piece of machinery," Petrelli said.
 
The center also gives Christiana Care oncologists the chance to work closely with University of Delaware researchers.
 
For five years, the two institutions have been working to conduct translational cancer research, which occurs when tissue is cut from a cancer patient in surgery. The tissue is collected and analyzed so lab workers can test different drugs on it to see what is most effective at killing the cancer.
 
Today, the new Center for Translational Cancer Research is on the fourth floor of the Graham center. Previously, tissue samples were shipped six miles from Stanton to UD laboratories in Newark. Now, the tissue transfers will be immediate, said Dr. Bruce Boman, director of cancer genetics and stemcell biology at the Graham center.
 
"It's a lot better because we'll be decreasing the time from when we get the sample to when we can do something with it," he said.