CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado Expansion Brings State-of-the-Art Care Closer to Patients

CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado will start offering urologic services in January. (Photo Provided by CARTI)

CARTI Inc. of Little Rock recently completed the second phase of its $19 million cancer center in El Dorado, adding breast care, advanced imaging and radiation oncology services.

In January, CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado will begin offering urologic services.

“We’re happy to say that there is truly a place available where patients can come in and essentially get everything they might need on their cancer journey,” Adam Head, president and CEO of CARTI, told Arkansas Business.

The facility includes the Breast Center, which offers “the most advanced diagnostic imaging capabilities available in Arkansas,” Head said. The Breast Center’s services include 3D screening mammography and supplemental screenings such as whole-breast ultrasound, and it was the first in Arkansas to offer contrast-enhanced mammography, according to a news release.

The treatment services can’t come soon enough for Arkansans. Arkansas is expected to see the largest percentage increase in new cancer diagnoses this year than any other state, compared with numbers from 2021, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.

Arkansas is expected to have 19,700 new cases in 2025, a 27.3% increase compared with 2021, according to Becker’s, which used data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. “Arkansas has always had a disproportionate share of cancer just compared to our population,” Head said. “In south Arkansas, especially, [there’s] even more of a disproportionate share.”

He said that more cancer is being diagnosed earlier, which gives patients the best chance for treatment.

The number of patients CARTI treats annually has increased each year and now stands at 60,000.

CARTI’s revenue also has been growing. CARTI’s total net revenue was $611.7 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30, a 20.3% increase compared with the previous fiscal year.

The nonprofit cancer treatment provider has been in El Dorado for more than 20 years. But CARTI had “way outgrown” its 4,000-SF oncology clinic, Head said. In 2021, it moved into a more than 25,000-SF center and offered medical oncology and imaging services. “We have been the primary oncology provider in south Arkansas,” Head said.

Head said the center had a significant patient response after it opened. “There are essentially very few reasons why a patient would have to travel” more than two hours to Little Rock for treatment now, he said.

In 2024, CARTI received $7 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to complete Phase 2 of the facility.

CARTI has seven physicians at the El Dorado center and will have eight with the addition of urologic services.

The provider has 18 locations around the state and a cancer-focused surgery center.

“The CARTI Cancer Center El Dorado reflects our commitment to radically transform how cancer care is delivered to meet patients where they are,” Head said in a news release.