Morning Medical Update Thursday 10-6-22

The University of Kansas Health System is treating a total of 49 COVID patients today, down from 53 yesterday. Other significant numbers:

Key points from today’s guests:

Camy Crank, breast cancer survivor, author

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015.
Author of the book “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”. She wrote the book to help inspire others.
She said there is so much hope when you first get a cancer diagnosis. But there are things that you go through that you don’t want to talk about, so this book covers those questions from someone who has gone through cancer.
When she received her diagnosis, her daughter and husband were with her when the breast surgeon told her she would lose her breasts and hair. She confessed losing her hair was much harder to hear and explained why.

Dr. James Butterworth, plastic surgeon, The University of Kansas Health System

DIEP is a way of doing breast reconstruction that uses one's own body tissue to reconstruct breasts, as opposed to using foreign objects like implants.
That tissue comes from the fat and the skin of the lower abdomen or the belly.

Breast reconstructions can be done with implants, and nationally about 60-70 percent of women undergo implant-based reconstructions as opposed to reconstruction using other body tissue like Camy.

Sabrina Korentager, MSN, Lymphedema Prevention Clinic, The University of Kansas Cancer Center

Meets with patients are very early on in their diagnosis. They know what the risks are, and they know what we're going to do if things start to happen.
Due to the use of our technology and following Camy closely in the clinic, they were able to give her great peace of mind.
Making strides about trying to seek out people who are having those early indicators before they even develop it. Camy will be monitored through that continuum. The team is always available for patients because they’ve established such a personal relationship.
Lymphedema is not genetic. It can happen after lymph nodes are removed. Each body responds differently. The lymphedema clinic helps with many treatments and tools to help people when their body cannot fully compensate and control fluid buildup. Catching it early is key.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control, The University of Kansas Health System

Always on the lookout for new COVID variants. That's one thing that has proven to be true since the pandemic began is that these variants do arise, and they fill in those vacuums of those places where there is immunity to other variants or other isolates of the virus.
Overall, what we also have continued to see is that our preventive measures and our treatment measures continue to work and that is what we need to count on.
Monkypox case counts have decreased steadily for the past few weeks.
The publication from the CDC showed that those people that had received at least one dose of the vaccine against monkeypox were 14 times less likely to get monkeypox if exposed. So, Dr. Hawkinson said we have good preventive measures for that as well.

Friday, October 7 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update, covering the power of a second opinion.

ATTENTION MEDIA: Please note access is now with Microsoft Teams:

Join on your computer or mobile app

Click here to join the meeting

Meeting ID: 235 659 792 451
Passcode: 6CSfGE

Or call in (audio only)

+1 913-318-8863,566341546# United States, Kansas City

TVU Grid link: UoK_Health_SDI

Restream links: Facebook.com/kuhospital

YouTube.com/kuhospital

Send advance questions to medicalnewsnetwork@kumc.edu.

Media Resources