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American Morning

'Paging Dr. Gupta'

Aired January 08, 2004 - 08:44   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN has learned that the FDA has asked Inamed (ph) for more information regarding the company's bid to sell silicone breast implants.
With us this morning to talk about that is medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Good morning. Nice to see you.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Inamed got what's called a nonapprovalble letter from the FDA. What does this mean for the future marketing and sale of breast implants in this country?

GUPTA: It's an obstacle for now, but it doesn't mean it will never happen. Basically, controversial subject. Back in October, the FDA advisory committee, which has been studying this for a long time -- this has been off the market for 11 years -- they recommended approval back in October. Not unanimously. Unanimously, it was 9-6 at that point, so pretty controversial back then. The FDA over the last three months, reviewing that data, now coming back and saying, you know what, at this point, not approvable. We still need more information, that process could take several months, if not years.

O'BRIEN: Basically saying the ball is now in the court of the company to come up with more information.

GUPTA: Inamed being the company. All this information coming from Inamed. At 1:00 today, the FDA says they will have a press briefing announcing some of the details.

O'BRIEN: Also this morning, you've got a study out of the Journal of the American Medical Association on cancer screenings. Interesting study. It's sort of a good news, bad news study.

GUPTA: Very interesting. And this has to do as much with psychology as it does with science. If you look at cancer, there's about over 400,000 cancer deaths every year. About 35 percent of them probably could have either been prevented or delayed if earlier cancer screening could have been done. So that captures the hears and minds of a lot of people.

Lots of give sorts of cancer screenings out there, but sometimes doing early screenings can be fraught with problems, as well. So that was a subject of a study actually coming out of Dartmouth. Here's what they found, is that 87 percent of people believe that cancer screening is always a good idea, always a good idea, and they cite obligation to their family as being the No. 1 concern.

Now, why this is a controversial, obviously sounds pretty common sensicial, why is this a concern, because sometimes these cancer screenings can lead to what are known as false positives and false negatives. False positives means something was found that really isn't there. That's a problem, because you can actually have biopsies, more invasive procedures, and just be scared, or you could have a false negative, that doesn't find something that was there that could miss a cancer diagnosis.

The interesting thing, in the psychology, though, we're talking about most fascinating, all those people that had those false positives, those people who, you know, found something, got scared about, but didn't actually happen, they were surveyed, and 98 percent of them said, you know what, I was scared, but I'd still do it again.

O'BRIEN: So they're enthusiastic, even though they had what could be considered a not great experience.

GUPTA: That's right, they still think the screening is still a good idea, even though it gave them quite a jolt.

O'BRIEN: Two quick questions for you. First, there's a zillion screenings across the board in the medical community. Which are the ones most recommended by the medical community for cancer screening?

GUPTA: There are recommended screenings, and they're recommended at certain ages. They have to do with various types of cancer, including -- you can see the list -- breast, colon rectal, cervical and prostate. There are guidelines in terms of what tests and what age you should have those tests.

O'BRIEN: What about the full body CAT scan, which actually mostly men get into their 40s, they start to think that they should have the whole body done, head to toe. Good idea? Bad idea? Does it work?

GUPTA: Well, you know, the American College of Radiology has been very, very definitive on this. They're saying they do not recommend it.

O'BRIEN: Why not?

GUPTA: They don't think that -- it comes back to this false positive, false negative question again. They don't think the accuracy and the confidence is there yet to use this to give somebody a clean bill of health.

The flip side of this, Soledad, you and I have both heard the stories of people like Don Sutton, who is an Atlanta Braves announcer. I just hear his story. On his 57th birthday, he got one of these CAT scans, never sick a day in his life. They found kidney cancer. Subsequently had his kidney removed. It probably saved his life. So you're going to find those sort of anecdotal stories, but you've got to sort of compare that to the huge public health challenge as well.

O'BRIEN: All right, Sanjay Gupta, thanks for covering across the board for us this morning. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: Thank you.

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 January 8, 2004 - 08:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN has learned that the FDA has asked Inamed (ph) for more information regarding the company's bid to sell silicone breast implants.
With us this morning to talk about that is medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Good morning. Nice to see you.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Inamed got what's called a nonapprovalble letter from the FDA. What does this mean for the future marketing and sale of breast implants in this country?

GUPTA: It's an obstacle for now, but it doesn't mean it will never happen. Basically, controversial subject. Back in October, the FDA advisory committee, which has been studying this for a long time -- this has been off the market for 11 years -- they recommended approval back in October. Not unanimously. Unanimously, it was 9-6 at that point, so pretty controversial back then. The FDA over the last three months, reviewing that data, now coming back and saying, you know what, at this point, not approvable. We still need more information, that process could take several months, if not years.

O'BRIEN: Basically saying the ball is now in the court of the company to come up with more information.

GUPTA: Inamed being the company. All this information coming from Inamed. At 1:00 today, the FDA says they will have a press briefing announcing some of the details.

O'BRIEN: Also this morning, you've got a study out of the Journal of the American Medical Association on cancer screenings. Interesting study. It's sort of a good news, bad news study.

GUPTA: Very interesting. And this has to do as much with psychology as it does with science. If you look at cancer, there's about over 400,000 cancer deaths every year. About 35 percent of them probably could have either been prevented or delayed if earlier cancer screening could have been done. So that captures the hears and minds of a lot of people.

Lots of give sorts of cancer screenings out there, but sometimes doing early screenings can be fraught with problems, as well. So that was a subject of a study actually coming out of Dartmouth. Here's what they found, is that 87 percent of people believe that cancer screening is always a good idea, always a good idea, and they cite obligation to their family as being the No. 1 concern.

Now, why this is a controversial, obviously sounds pretty common sensicial, why is this a concern, because sometimes these cancer screenings can lead to what are known as false positives and false negatives. False positives means something was found that really isn't there. That's a problem, because you can actually have biopsies, more invasive procedures, and just be scared, or you could have a false negative, that doesn't find something that was there that could miss a cancer diagnosis.

The interesting thing, in the psychology, though, we're talking about most fascinating, all those people that had those false positives, those people who, you know, found something, got scared about, but didn't actually happen, they were surveyed, and 98 percent of them said, you know what, I was scared, but I'd still do it again.

O'BRIEN: So they're enthusiastic, even though they had what could be considered a not great experience.

GUPTA: That's right, they still think the screening is still a good idea, even though it gave them quite a jolt.

O'BRIEN: Two quick questions for you. First, there's a zillion screenings across the board in the medical community. Which are the ones most recommended by the medical community for cancer screening?

GUPTA: There are recommended screenings, and they're recommended at certain ages. They have to do with various types of cancer, including -- you can see the list -- breast, colon rectal, cervical and prostate. There are guidelines in terms of what tests and what age you should have those tests.

O'BRIEN: What about the full body CAT scan, which actually mostly men get into their 40s, they start to think that they should have the whole body done, head to toe. Good idea? Bad idea? Does it work?

GUPTA: Well, you know, the American College of Radiology has been very, very definitive on this. They're saying they do not recommend it.

O'BRIEN: Why not?

GUPTA: They don't think that -- it comes back to this false positive, false negative question again. They don't think the accuracy and the confidence is there yet to use this to give somebody a clean bill of health.

The flip side of this, Soledad, you and I have both heard the stories of people like Don Sutton, who is an Atlanta Braves announcer. I just hear his story. On his 57th birthday, he got one of these CAT scans, never sick a day in his life. They found kidney cancer. Subsequently had his kidney removed. It probably saved his life. So you're going to find those sort of anecdotal stories, but you've got to sort of compare that to the huge public health challenge as well.

O'BRIEN: All right, Sanjay Gupta, thanks for covering across the board for us this morning. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: Thank you.

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