Mobile cancer clinic opens to help detect cancer earlier, save lives in rural Utah

PAYSON — Karen Huntsman said she would do anything to spread the message that early cancer detection saves lives — and that includes personally riding on a cancer screening bus she helped launch on Monday.

Speaking at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the mobile cancer screening clinic in Payson, Huntsman noted that her husband’s mother died four years after being diagnosed with breast cancer. After her husband, Jon Huntsman, got cancer, she said he told her he was giving $10 million to the fight against cancer. Since then, Karen Huntsman says she herself has been through cancer treatments.

The front of the bus, or cancer screening clinic, has seats that rotate, creating areas where staff can privately meet with patients. The bus also has two changing rooms, a waiting area, an area for the cancer scans to be performed, a break room for staff and a device to send information from anywhere in the state.

Peter Huntsman said this second mobile screening unit is just a “downpayment,” saying the Huntsman Foundation intends to implement AI features and provide instantaneous readings in more clinics and do more for rural areas.

He said people who live 20 miles south of Payson can have a 20% lower chance of survival than people who live within a few miles of the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City.

Read the full story and more from Emily Ashcraft on ksl.com.