UC Davis Doctors Live Tweet Woman's Lung Cancer Surgery
SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) -- A team of doctors at the University of California, Davis Cancer Center in Sacramento live-tweeted Thursday as they removed a cancerous tumor from a Northern California woman's lungs.
The surgery was performed on Gwen Box of Chico. In an interview before the surgery, Box said she never smoked and was surprised to find out she had lung cancer in late 2014.
"Extremely surprised because being a non-smoker, you kind of equate lung cancer with a smoker. And I've never even had severe coughs and even them telling me in the very beginning that I had pneumonia, treating for pneumonia, that even surprised me because I'm a healthy person," Box said in a YouTube video from the university.
Surgeons performed a procedure called VATS, which stands for video-assisted thoracic surgery. Dr. David Tom Cooke, head of thoracic surgery said it is a minimally invasive procedure.
Doctors posted on Twitter as they prepared for the surgery and throughout the procedure, which took several hours.
The doctors said they were able to remove the woman's tumor.
Doctors said Box will stay in the hospital for a few days, before returning home.
Several other hospitals have live-tweeted as they performed major surgeries. Last month, Baylor University live-tweeted a heart transplant. In 2013, UCLA used Twitter and Vine to document a man's brain surgery.
