When Dr. Gloria Kasey-Smith died in December 2005 after an eight-year battle with breast cancer, retired teacher Arlene Segar of Monroeville wanted to do something that would both honor her longtime friend and neighbor and help other breast cancer patients.

"I was so discouraged about [her] amount of suffering -- though she was a very positive woman -- and her death, that there had to be something done for women going through this," Mrs. Segar said.

"I wanted the women to have a more dignified form of undergoing radiation."

She found a way to provide it in designing -- with input from cancer center personnel -- what have come to be called Dignity Robes for use at four West Penn Allegheny Health System facilities: Allegheny General Hospital, Alle-Kiski Medical Center in Natrona Heights, Somerset Hospital, and Forbes Intercommunity Cancer Center in Monroeville.

Made in five sizes, from fabric ranging from vibrant florals to colorful plaids, and sometimes embroidered for an additional personal touch, Dignity Robes replace the traditional one-size-doesn't-fit-anybody hospital gowns that supposedly are held closed by ties but in actuality expose a lot of skin.

The Dignity Robes instead are closed with Velcro down the front and each side, which allows radiation technicians and doctors to limit how much skin they expose to examine or radiate the cancer. "Like if they're checking lymph nodes under the right arm, they can take the Velcro and rip it open so they're just looking at the underarm," Mrs. Segar said.

"We tested them for a couple weeks [in early 2006] and everyone loved them," Mrs. Segar added of the trial at the Forbes campus. "Meeting a need of 25, we officially started in April of 2006."

Since then, sewers have made some 1,400 Dignity Robes for the hospital system, 1,200 of which have been distributed to grateful patients, who get to keep them. The rest of them have been stockpiled to use during the sewers' usual downtimes in summers and Decembers.

Dr. David Parda, chairman of the West Penn Allegheny Health System Radiation Oncology Network, believes the robes have a positive impact on cancer patients.

"When we're treating with radiation the patients typically come back and forth for anywhere from one treatment to 45, so on a day-to-day basis they're exposed to a cold table in a cold room and exposed [physically] in that room," he said. "We want to improve that experience as much as we can. ...

"I think that anything we can do to maintain the pride and dignity of a patient helps with their overall well-being, and their overall well-being impacts on how well they get through treatment. ...

"It's not too much of a stretch to say it has an impact on the success of their treatment. The primary weapons for caring are surgery, chemo, radiation and biologic therapy," Dr. Parda added, "but the human body is very complex, so a patient's well-being has a lot to do with whether they're overcoming cancer and getting maximum benefits from all of those therapies."

Mrs. Segar shrugs off praise for the success of the project, saying "We aren't here for attention -- we are here to serve other women."

Still, she added, "The American Sewing Guild [local] chapter helped supply the sewers who make this program ongoing. I couldn't do it myself," she said.

But for the first two years, Mrs. Segar did pay all the costs out of her pension, costs that ran into five figures. Sometimes people have donated fabric, and, through a friend, she has been able to get a fabric manufacturer to send overruns and seconds for the cost of shipment. But in recent months, AGH also has set up a fund through which people can donate to the Dignity Robes Project.

In the meantime, the program has grown geometrically.

"In Western Pennsylvania, we have about 70 people working," Mrs. Segar said. There also are Dignity Robe sewers in Richmond, Va.; Houston, Texas; Las Vegas and New York. Some of those sewers send the robes to cancer facilities in their own home areas, but others send them back to Mrs. Segar. A Las Vegas group, for example, sends her six to eight robes a month.

There also are about seven quilt shops and sewing stores that stock robe sewing kits for people who sew at their own rate; and church and high school groups that make them. Some of the latter make the robes for other hospitals, Mrs. Segar said. North Hills High sewers, for example, make them for UPMC-Passavant Hospital.

Mrs. Segar always is in the market for more sewers. For information or to volunteer call 412-372-5990 or 412-359-3067. Financial donations should be sent to Radiation Oncology Program Fund/Dignity Robes, c/o Allegheny General Hospital Department of Fund Development, 320 E. North Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15212.