Tuesday Morning Medical Update: Radioactive “Seeds” Attack Cancer With Precision Radiation Treatment

The University of Kansas Health System is treating a total of 44 COVID patients today, 38 yesterday. Other significant numbers:

29 with the active virus today, 22 yesterday
5 in ICU, 3 yesterday
1 on a ventilator, 0 yesterday

Key points from today’s guests:

Bob Berkebile, patient
Bob had been getting prostate exams every year, when his doctor said that annual exams were no longer necessary.
Two and a half years ago, during an annual physical with another doctor, that doctor recommended a further prostate test because something seemed unusual.
Bob was diagnosed with prostate cancer and sought treatment at The University Kansas Cancer Center after doing some of his own research about brachytherapy and Dr. Chen.
Today, Bob is healthy and continues to get regular check-ups with Dr. Chen.


Dr. Ronald Chen, radiation oncologist, The University of Kansas Cancer Center
Brachytherapy has a number of different advantages. Mainly, it allows us to give the highest amount of radiation to where the cancer is and minimize the radiation to other organs outside of that tumor.
There's limited radiation dose outside of that area because “radioactive seeds” are directly placed into the prostate.
It’s a minimally invasive procedure to insert the seeds (which are the size of a pencil lead) into the body via needles.
The cure rate with brachytherapy goes from 55 to 80 percent cure rate at 10 years -- that's a huge difference.
Only very specialized places and physicians are trained to do this procedure and we are one of the few in the Midwest.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control, The University of Kansas Health System
The World Health Organization is tracking cholera outbreaks in 24 different countries, with the only outbreaks near us in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
These outbreaks look like they're getting worse the WHO labels the global risk is very high.
Even before COVID, here at the Health System, we were preparing for these emerging and reemerging infections and we continue to do that today.
This is why we continue to talk about those pillars of infection prevention to help reduce your risk of getting these things -- the most important one is hand hygiene.

Wednesday, March 28 is the next Open Mics with Dr. Stites. The federal government recently outlined a plan to revamp the nation's organ transplant system, hoping to make it more efficient. We’ll talk with transplant doctors and a U.S. Senator about what those changes could mean for us in the Midwest.

Visit our website, www.kansashealthsystem.com or findadoctor.kansashealthsystem.com.