SEMO News Service
SIKESTON -- Looking to help other women feel better about themselves after having their breasts amputated, former Stoddard County resident and breast cancer survivor Lisa Crites came up with The Shower Shirt.
Crites, who lives in Cocoa Beach, Fla., created the water-resistant garment after undergoing a bilateral mastectomy herself in May 2009.
"The most exciting component of the shirt is it focuses to protect women. The secondary focus is they can wear it later to signify survivorship," said Crites said, noting The Shower Shirt's design looks like a velour-type jacket.
To coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Crites appeared on a recent episode of Lifetime Television's "The Balancing Act," which aired from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m.
In her segment on the women's morning show, Crites, who is the daughter of Gary Crites of Dexter and the late Dianne Pollock Crites, discussed the inspiration behind the creation of her product, which protects against the risk of post-surgical infections following the removal of one or both breasts, to prevent breast cancer's return.
Nearly 100,000 women in the United States alone undergo mastectomies each year to treat breast cancer, the most common cancer in women and the second leading cause of cancer death, after lung cancer.
"It's been a difficult process, though, a cathartic one," Crites said, of the regulatory hurdles she's faced in bringing the medical device to market. "I've spent more than a year on patent applications, regulatory documents, design patterns and prototypes for an overseas manufacturer."
After her own surgery last year, the 43-year-old Crites found she had no way to shower before doctors removed her surgical drains. So, she improvised, using a tightly-tied plastic bag to keep water from coming into contact with her incisions, "thus reducing the opportunity for infection."
That's when the idea for the Shower Shirt took hold, she said, ultimately leading to the creation of her first prototype, fashioned out of a beauty salon cape.
Last week the shirt became available at three locations in Florida, with the American Cancer Society selling the product on-line by the end of this year and in their "TLC" retail catalog for cancer patients beginning in 2011.
Crites's Shower Shirt Co. also is working with an Ohio-based international medical distributor, Invacare, and the company's consulting firm in North Carolina for wider distribution in both the United States and to more than 20 other countries.
The estimated retail cost for the Shower Shirt, which is a class 1 medical device registered with the Food and Drug Administration, is around $85. However, the company is working with Medicare and private insurers for reimbursement for all breast cancer and mastectomy patients.
Crites, who met a representative from Susan G. Komen this week, said she has received positive comments from the medical community and breast cancer patients. One woman told her the Shower Shirt should be a staple in every mastectomy patient's closet, Crites said.
"We've done some target market research on it and received wonderful feedback," Crites said. "For someone who's gone through breast amputation and didn't have a Shower Shirt, this will definitely make the lives of mastectomy patients much easier."
A 1985 graduate of Richland High School in Essex, Crites is also a 1989 graduate of Murray State University, in Murray, Ky.
"My goal with this product is that every hospital in this country will eventually give them to all mastectomy patients in a kit that will prepare those patients for post-recovery," Crites said.
The kits would be similar to those given by hospitals to women after child birth, Crites said.
"Having breast cancer and a mastectomy surgery is also a definitive moment in a woman's life," Crites said.
For more information on the Shower Shirt, go to www.theshowershirt.com or contact Crites at lclisacrites@gmail.com.