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CNN Live Today

Breast Exam Debate

Aired October 02, 2002 - 11:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to health care news. Very important for women. For years, women have been instructed to examine their breasts once a month as a means of possibly finding lumps that could be cancerous. Well, now, there are results of a 10 year study showing that self-examination may not be as beneficial as once thought.
Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to discuss the findings.

Controversial medical debate. Seems we find something new and different every month on mammograms and now self-exams.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I tell you, breast cancer has certainly had its share of confusion and conflicting information, certainly breast self exam now in the news.

Let me just tell you, it is very confusing. There was a Harris poll actually recently done, looking at women, aged 20 to 39, over 500 women, and asked them some pretty simple questions about mammography and breast cancer. Let's look at some of the results of that. Interesting, 33 percent incorrectly believe mammograms prevent breast cancer. That's not true, 15 percent think mammograms can treat breast cancer. That's not true. Fifteen percent incorrectly think mammograms can actually treat breast cancer, even less true. Over 50 percent of young women don't perform monthly breast self-exams. We're going to talk a little bit more about that, and one third of women do not believe something can be done to actually reduce their risk.

Those are all false things. And you see how much misinformation there is out there. Breast self exams, in particular, Daryn. There has now been a huge study that actually looked at over 250,000 women in Shanghai, China -- 130,000 actually did self-breast exam, 130,000 did not. What they found is exactly what you said, sort of remarkable. They asked two questions, does this reduce the risk of breast cancer, number one, and does this reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer? And the answer to both of those was no, at least according to this study.

KAGAN: But before we tell people to stop doing that, that's a different topic, but when I was looking at this, as you mentioned, this is in China, and this is a place where women have different type of access to health care, wasn't it really a bigger picture, a debate on, what should health care funds be spent on? Should it be spent on teaching women to do this, or should it be spent on something that can save more lives?

GUPTA: You're absolutely right. People talk, one thing people say to me a lot, is what could be wrong with teaching women self- breast exams, seems like a pretty basic thing to do, but in fact, just as you say, in an era of limited resources, if you only have a certain time to be able to perform mammography, actually do clinician breast exams, really thorough breast exams in the office, sometimes that doesn't leave the time to actually teach women to do the self-breast exams, and now they're sort of finding that self-breast exams should definitely not stand along, should never be a substitute for a good clinician breast exam or for a mammography, even more important than that.

KAGAN: So the message to American women, who will be watching now, you are not saying, stop doing that. It should just be a part of a total health care package. You do that, but you also see your doctor, and at the appropriate time, get a mammogram.

GUPTA: That's right. It should never be a substitute, number one. And self-breast exams should be part of the mammography and a good clinician breast exam. There are some things to look for. We have a list of specific things that if you are doing it. That's a list. I won't read everything there, but if you are someone who is going to follow your breast care very closely, see your doctor about it, these are some things you can do at home as well to make sure that you catch something early, which is absolutely the key.

KAGAN: Very good. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 2, 2002 - 11:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to health care news. Very important for women. For years, women have been instructed to examine their breasts once a month as a means of possibly finding lumps that could be cancerous. Well, now, there are results of a 10 year study showing that self-examination may not be as beneficial as once thought.
Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to discuss the findings.

Controversial medical debate. Seems we find something new and different every month on mammograms and now self-exams.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I tell you, breast cancer has certainly had its share of confusion and conflicting information, certainly breast self exam now in the news.

Let me just tell you, it is very confusing. There was a Harris poll actually recently done, looking at women, aged 20 to 39, over 500 women, and asked them some pretty simple questions about mammography and breast cancer. Let's look at some of the results of that. Interesting, 33 percent incorrectly believe mammograms prevent breast cancer. That's not true, 15 percent think mammograms can treat breast cancer. That's not true. Fifteen percent incorrectly think mammograms can actually treat breast cancer, even less true. Over 50 percent of young women don't perform monthly breast self-exams. We're going to talk a little bit more about that, and one third of women do not believe something can be done to actually reduce their risk.

Those are all false things. And you see how much misinformation there is out there. Breast self exams, in particular, Daryn. There has now been a huge study that actually looked at over 250,000 women in Shanghai, China -- 130,000 actually did self-breast exam, 130,000 did not. What they found is exactly what you said, sort of remarkable. They asked two questions, does this reduce the risk of breast cancer, number one, and does this reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer? And the answer to both of those was no, at least according to this study.

KAGAN: But before we tell people to stop doing that, that's a different topic, but when I was looking at this, as you mentioned, this is in China, and this is a place where women have different type of access to health care, wasn't it really a bigger picture, a debate on, what should health care funds be spent on? Should it be spent on teaching women to do this, or should it be spent on something that can save more lives?

GUPTA: You're absolutely right. People talk, one thing people say to me a lot, is what could be wrong with teaching women self- breast exams, seems like a pretty basic thing to do, but in fact, just as you say, in an era of limited resources, if you only have a certain time to be able to perform mammography, actually do clinician breast exams, really thorough breast exams in the office, sometimes that doesn't leave the time to actually teach women to do the self-breast exams, and now they're sort of finding that self-breast exams should definitely not stand along, should never be a substitute for a good clinician breast exam or for a mammography, even more important than that.

KAGAN: So the message to American women, who will be watching now, you are not saying, stop doing that. It should just be a part of a total health care package. You do that, but you also see your doctor, and at the appropriate time, get a mammogram.

GUPTA: That's right. It should never be a substitute, number one. And self-breast exams should be part of the mammography and a good clinician breast exam. There are some things to look for. We have a list of specific things that if you are doing it. That's a list. I won't read everything there, but if you are someone who is going to follow your breast care very closely, see your doctor about it, these are some things you can do at home as well to make sure that you catch something early, which is absolutely the key.

KAGAN: Very good. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com