CARTI to Open Breast Center in El Dorado, Expanding Cancer Care

CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado will treat breast cancer, urological cancer and other conditions in the coming months. (Provided)

CARTI Inc. of Little Rock will open a breast center in its El Dorado cancer center next month, followed by other services to augment the nonprofit’s effort to improve cancer treatment in south Arkansas.

In the spring, CARTI will begin offering urologic care, followed by radiation oncology in the fall at the 25,000-SF facility, which opened in December 2021.

“It’s nothing short of transformative, being able to have all of these services there,” Adam Head, CARTI president and CEO, told Arkansas Business.

The CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado also will provide other services, such as advanced screening services and other cancer treatment procedures. “We’re not holding anything back, so to speak,” Head said. “This is not a second-tier cancer center operation that is nice, but not as nice as Little Rock. This is not that at all.”

The breast center will be “the most advanced breast-imaging center that can be available in the state of Arkansas,” he said.

The center will have contrast-enhanced mammography, which is similar to a mammogram but designed to detect breast cancer earlier than a traditional mammogram.

CARTI also will begin offering contrast-enhanced mammography in Little Rock at the same time as in El Dorado, Head said.

CARTI’s breast center in El Dorado is built for comfort and accessibility for women who are getting annual screenings, he said. Or if a patient has a breast concern that needs to be looked at and treated, “in men or women, it’ll all be available there in the breast center in CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado,” Head said.

The breast center in El Dorado marks the opening of CARTI’s fifth breast center. “Every time we’ve opened up a breast center, it’s making a tremendous impact on screening and diagnostic opportunities for women,” Head said.

In the spring, CARTI is adding urology services in El Dorado and expanding its general imaging services to “do fairly comprehensive screening services,” he said.

The expansion of services comes at the right time for south Arkansas. The American Cancer Society projects that in 2025 nearly 20,000 Arkansans will be told for the first time that they have cancer. South Arkansas typically has had a disproportionately high share of cancer rates compared with other areas of the state, Head said.

Meanwhile, CARTI has seen its new patient visits continue to climb. For the fiscal year that ended June 30, CARTI’s new patient visits for radiation, medical and surgical oncology totaled 13,710, up from 12,739 in the previous year, according to its audited financial statements on file with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board of Washington, D.C.

But Head said the cancer death rate “is pretty much staying flat” in Arkansas.

As of January 2022, there were an estimated 18.1 million cancer survivors in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute. The number of cancer survivors is projected to increase to 22.5 million by 2032, the American Cancer Society said.

Head said that he believes there are a lot of people in Arkansas who have cancer but don’t know it because they live too far from a provider to be screened or can’t afford to be tested. Head said CARTI wants to help, as its mission is “making trusted cancer care accessible for every patient we serve through compassion, innovation and purpose.”

CARTI has six cancer centers and 18 locations across the state. “We want this to be available so there’s no need to have to drive anywhere else in the state and certainly not out of state,” Head said.

CARTI’s net patient service revenue has been growing and was $497.3 million for its latest fiscal year. It reported an operating income of $4.99 million before depreciation and foundation fundraising revenue and expenses.

Head expected the net patient service revenue to expand to about $600 million for CARTI’s fiscal year that ends in June. “We feel like we’ve had a healthy year,” Head said.

CARTI has been in El Dorado for 25 years, but most of those were as a medical oncology clinic. “We were in a clinic that we just significantly outgrew, taking care of essentially all of the patients and families facing cancer in the central south Arkansas area for those 20 years,” Head said.

In December 2021, CARTI opened the $19 million CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado, a facility that included an infusion suite with 30 headed recliners and an onsite lab.

In 2024, CARTI’s expansion of the Cancer Center was helped by $7 million from funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, funding that was supported by Gov. Sarah Sanders and state legislators, Head said. “Our vision is being able to create a space where patients can walk in, literally to one front desk, and have easy access to all of these services, together with our team of experts, clinicians, providers working together on behalf of patients,” Head said. “And that is exactly what happened.”