[Daryn Kagan, Cnn Anchor:] You might have heard of people using patches to help quit smoking or for birth control. Now, it's becoming a popular way for patients to take other kinds of medicine. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now to talk about the benefits and potential risks of this type of treatment good morning.
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Medical Correspondent:] Good morning. You think of medicines, you think of pills, you think of shots. You don't typically think of patches, but as you mention, there are already a couple of patches out there. The most common patches initially were patches nitroglycerine patches to treat chest pain, and scopolamine patches to treat motion sickness, but now you can see a whole list of transdermal medications. Nicotine for smoking, you mentioned that, pain medicines, blood pressure medications, birth control pills as well, hormone replacement therapy. See the entire list there. How good are they, and how do patients sort of respond to them? Well, we had a chance to sit down and speak to a woman, and this is what she had to say.
[Unidentified Female:] Occasionally, I would forget to take a pill. When they came out with a new product that's the same hormones, but I only had to use it once a week, it was much easier for me to remember, and I thought there would be I would be more compliant with the patch. So I gave it a try.
[Gupta:] Compliance really being the key there, and one of the biggest advantage of these transdermal patches is just trying to remember something once a week instead of once a day is a big advantage. Take a look at some of the other advantages of these transdermal patches as well. Several of them, less total dose of the medications is actually required, which is interesting. Maintains an even level of medicine in the blood. Think of these transdermal patches as almost like a constant infusion of the medication as opposed to taking pills. Patches can be cut to achieve precise dozing and they are easy to use, as we already mentioned, better compliance. Along with every advantage, there are, unfortunately, also disadvantage to these pills. Take a look at some of the disadvantages. Skin irritation can occur in some people. That occurs, they may not be a candidate for these transdermal patches. The patches can fall off. Some patches cannot be immersed in water, although we see those ads on television with the woman actually jumping into a swimming pool with the patch on, and some of the disadvantages there.
[Kagan:] Thank you so much. We're going to have to keep it short today because of the other breaking news.
[Gupta:] OK. All right. Good seeing you.
[Kagan:] But thank you, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Have a good weekend.