Morning Rounds – Updates on the Latest News

Dr. Usman Latif, pain management specialist, The University of Kansas Health System

• One of my patients recently became the first in the world to receive a certain upgrade to his spinal cord stimulator.
• Pain is a natural protective response in your body. But sometimes that pain can become chronic and interfere with our lives in those situations
• Spinal cord stimulation offers us a way to use a minimally invasive procedure to place tiny electrodes against a spinal cord to deliver electrical impulses that you don't even feel that help your body turn down the volume on unhealthy pain.
• Artificial intelligence has become so pervasive in our lives, but it's been very slow to make its way into healthcare. When you have a spinal cord stimulator, you typically have to come into the office multiple times to have little tweaks made, to have optimizations made so that it works well for you and gives you pain relief.
• AI allows us to take the data from 100,000 patients, customize that based on what makes you unique as an individual, and then delivers you optimization from the comfort of your home.
• About two years ago, when this technology first came to market, the very first patient in the world to trial this was here at KU and over the next two years, I've been able to work with that company to develop the next generation and prioritize the features that are important to my patients.
• A couple weeks ago, we became the first institution in the world to offer this to our patients.
• For this type of stimulation, in the studies, we mostly are seeing 75 to 85 percent of patients with a positive response.

William Wallen, living with spinal cord stimulator

• He plays guitar in the band at church, and since his injury, he was not able to stand and play until he got the spinal cord stimulator.  
• William said he is now able to ride a motorcycle and can travel.
• Most days his pain has been reduced by 70 percent.

Focus Topic

Anna Oliver, non-Hodgkin lymphoma survivor

• In 2000, she was 26 weeks pregnant and was diagnosed with stage 4B non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
• There were no real studies about pregnancy and chemotherapy. The doctors said they were just trying to solve her cancer.
• She got her first stem cell transplant using her own cells, but then seven years later, she had another round of cancer and turned to her kids to see if they were donors.
• Her donor ended up being her daughter, but she needed another donor later for another round of cancer.
• It turns out a match was a man in Canada named Justin who helped save her life.
• After five different cancer diagnoses, and the latest two rounds of immunotherapy, she is back in remission and has been for 30 months now.
• Anna credits her faith, family, and community, and her positive outlook to keep fighting.
• She feels very blessed to have the support of so many people through five cancers.

Dr. Leyla Shune, hematologist and medical oncologist, The University of Kansas Cancer Center

• Anna has T cell lymphoma. When it comes to lymphoma, we have B cell lymphoma, which is easy to treat, and T cell lymphoma, which is harder to treat.
• I'm not surprised that it came back. Anna is a young mom raising her kids, so to have that come back is heartbreaking, but it's not uncommon.
• Anna's daughter gave us the perfect cells. She endured a bone marrow harvest and anesthesia in the operating room. What had happened is the lymphoma broke through, so despite our best efforts, unfortunately, the lymphoma came back.
• Her next stem cell donor in Canada, Justin, sacrificed and chose to stay sober and that really saved Anna’s life.
• This is the story of love and helping each other. We’re connected with this intense love for family to save each other. It’s beautiful story.

Justin Redekop, stem cell donor

• Justin had been donating platelets for quite some time, and 10 years ago he decided to provide a cheek swab DNA sample to be a bone marrow donor.
• Ten years later, he got the call to be a donor since he was a match for Anna.
• At the time, he was battling alcohol addiction and was just starting to quit, so this timing was essential because it helped him stay sober to help Anna.
• Justin said the opportunity to have the experience he did is definitely worth it.
• If you go to BeTheMatch.org, it will direct you to the National Marrow Donor Program. You can check out the site learn more about signing up to be a donor.

Monday, Sept. 30 at 8 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. No scalpel and no radiation are required as doctors can now use the power of sound to treat prostate cancer. Hear from one prostate cancer survivor who avoided serious side effects thanks to a newly approved precision treatment.

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