EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Texas Tech Health El Paso will break ground on the long-awaited comprehensive cancer care center on April 9, university officials said.  Renderings courtesy of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso The Texas Tech Board of Regents appro ved additional expenditures of just over $28 million last week so TTUHSC can begin site and utility work on the Steve and Nancy Fox Cancer Center. The cancer center’s project budget is estimated to total $138 million.  The cancer center will be built alongside a clinical sciences building, at an empty lot on the northside of the campus and railway track, and near Interstate 10. University officials said the multi-story facility will take approximately 30-months to complete.  TTUHSC President Richard Lang said the cancer center will help close long-existing gaps in cancer treatment for Borderland families, who would have had to travel several hours to comprehensive cancer centers in San Antonio and Houston.   “It will allow us to provide services that aren't available here, like advanced radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and also supply supportive care to the families in the area. It allows us to focus on our population. It's an underserved population that has financial difficulties, logistical challenges,” Lang said.  Lang added that the center will also allow them to expand preventative services for cancer and provide patients with access to clinical trials for new and innovative cancer therapies. “This will be a hub for kind of the groundbreaking cancer research that we're doing here already. we're emphasizing cancers that are indigenous to this particular area and to our patient population, how they present differently, how they're treated differently. So having this comprehensive cancer center will allow us to advance that,” Lang said.  Lang said he expects the new cancer center will also help them to train and develop a new generation of students to specialize in cancer treatment, which could improve the overall care available in the region.  “Training students, training residents, training nurses, and also the support care that's needed here. It will increase the amount of providers we have here and improve the care that we provide here in El Paso,” Lang said.  You can learn more about the Steve and Nancy Fox Cancer Center by clicking here: https://www.ttuhscepimpact.org/fox-cancer-center. ...read more read less