Mercy Northwest Arkansas gets $5 million gift from the Walmart Foundation for cancer treatment, advancing the care options in Benton County | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

ROGERS — Mercy Northwest Arkansas will spend about half of a $5 million donation to add services that will put the hospital “on the map” for interventional radiology, according to the physician tapped to lead the project.

The Walmart Foundation provided Mercy Northwest with the one-time gift to provide Northwest Arkansas residents with access to the best quality of care, said Kathleen McLaughlin, foundation president and executive vice president and chief sustainability officer at Walmart.

The hospital announced in a news release Wednesday it will use some of the money for the construction of an interventional radiology suite. The suite will include a robot-controlled system that uses imaging software to help guide physicians to conduct “minimally invasive” treatments for various conditions, the release said.

Jared Garrett, interventional radiologist at Mercy and project leader, described the machine as a 360-degree CT scanning device that can create imaging of any part of the body and allow physicians to isolate the veins a patient’s tumor is receiving blood from. He said the machine will ultimately allow for treatments to be directly administered to the tumor.

He said after blood flow to the specific location has been stopped, a catheter will deliver an injection of small, medicine-coated beads. Garrett said the beads travel less than a quarter of an inch, so the imaging machine is needed for precision. The injection is an outpatient procedure, and the beads continue to release the medicine days after the procedure. Most patients need multiple rounds of the treatment, and it depends of the patient for the number of rounds.

Garrett said the treatment will initially only be used on patients suffering from liver cancer, but the machine will be used to treat other types of cancer in the future. He said the liver is the organ with the highest level of metastasis or spreading of cancer in the body.

There are patients in Benton County that need the treatment, Garrett said, but they have had to go to Little Rock or to Missouri to receive it. The service is state-of-the-art but has been the standard in care for a decade, he added.

About half of the money from the Walmart Foundation gift will be spent on the interventional radiology suite, said Ryan Gehrig, president of Mercy Arkansas. He said Garrett is leading the project and will have final say on its various facets.

Gehrig said he recruited Garrett to Mercy in 2019 because he knew the oncology program needed a talented physician to move it to the next level.

The team is in the final stages of identifying a room in the hospital for the suite, Gehrig said. The suite should be ready for patients in six to seven months, he added.

Mercy does have ideas for the remaining gift funds and will announce them soon, Gehrig said.

Nathan Smith, chairman of the Mercy Health Foundation Northwest Arkansas, said the interventional radiology suite will keep patients from traveling, allowing them to get quality care close to home.

McLaughlin said the advancement will change lives in the community. She added it is inspiring to hear how the money will be practically used.