Dr Kerryn Phelps, Health Editor, Channel Nine 'Today', with Steve Liebmann

LIEBMANN: They are fast becoming a very popular, if not the most popular way to administer medication.

PHELPS: A lot of people are finding it very useful for them to not have to remember to take pills, or either might have for example, side effects with pills and they find that because the patches actually by-pass your digestive system and your liver, that you can actually get away with using lower doses and it also avoids fluctuations in doses, so we certainly saw this very early on with angina medication, and then followed, very soon after by the various nicotine replacements, and of course, we have moved now in to all sorts of different hormone preparations.

LIEBMANN: Well, there is a birth control patch coming.

PHELPS: Yes. Within the next twelve months or two years there is going to be a birth control patch available, it has been trialed in Australia, already. It is a patch that is put on once a week, and it is just sort of 'slap it on and forget', and then for three weeks, and then one week off, in a similar way to the way you take the oral contraceptive pill.

LIEBMANN: So for the benefit of those people who don't know, in principal, how do they work?

PHELPS: Well, they look a little bit like a band aid type of arrangement, and this one's actually a nicotine patch, but the birth control patch will look very similar. Some of them are beige in colour, skin coloured like this one, and some of them are clear in colour, and you just simply take the plastic off the back of them, and that goes straight on to the skin. Now, the drug is actually in a patch like this, in the adhesive…

LIEBMANN: Where are we…

PHELPS: …Then you would have some really remarkable new technology that is being used in some of the… what they call the 'Matrix' patches, where you have the drug actually in side a type of suspension medium, and that goes on to the skin, and that's released very slowly, sometimes over a week.

LIEBMANN: That's extraordinary, really, when you think about it, isn't it?

PHELPS: The technology it is, the technology is just amazing. I mean a patch like this would last a day, but then you've got your hormone patches, like your hormone replacement therapy, that women are finding increasingly popular for menopause, and they will last for three days, some of them for a week. And, of course, the new birth control patch is a week. We have also got pain relieving patches…

LIEBMANN: Really?

PHELPS: For people who have chronic pain, where they can put on quite a strong analgesic, it is called Fentanyl, and it will stay on for three days at a time, and then they just take it off, replace it, and they have continuos pain relief over that time.

LIEBMANN: I know that the Nicorette ones, you can now buy over the counter at the chemist shops.

PHELPS: Yes.

LIEBMANN: But most still require a script?

PHELPS: Well they are, because even though it is in this type of delivery system is so very accessible, and a lot of people think either an injection or a pill is a potent medicine, but these are similar potent medicines to the ones taken as a pill or an injection…

LIEBMANN: So, given that, is there the risk of o'ding on them? Can you overdose?

PHELPS You have to get the dose right, and if you look for example at the analgesic, the one that we talked about, which has a pain relieving quality, there a whole different range of strengths depending on the patients need and their tolerance to the drug and so, of course, it needs to be very carefully individualised for the patient. Similarly, with hormone replacement therapy, there are different doses of patches, and it is released at a constant rate, but at a particular rate that suites that patient's needs.

LIEBMANN: And they're more effective, or as effective as tablets?

PHELPS: Yes they are. And, in fact a lot of people find them better because they don't fluctuate. You can run into some difficulties with patches - some people get a bit of an irritation, but since most of them don't have alcohol in the patch now, that was quite often, the alcohol was to help absorb across the skin, but many of them don't have that now, and so they don't cause the irritation. Hot weather sometimes can be a bother with some people.

LIEBMANN: What happens if it falls off? I mean, if you have to put a patch on and wear it for the day, and maybe you go swimming or something, and it comes off, what do you do then?

PHELPS: That's a really good point. It is probably not a good idea to wear one in the sauna, but I think that if you have a regular hot day, I wouldn't put it somewhere where you had a skin-fold, or where you are likely to be very sweaty. So the upper part of the hips and the buttocks, and underneath clothes, because if you have direct sunlight on them, then that can affect them, too. So I suppose that's a good message for summer, for people wearing patches, for people to wear them out of an area that is likely to become very hot, because they can slip off. If they do, either just get instructions from your doctor about what to do if the patch comes off, but generally speaking, it will be a matter of putting a new one on.

LIEBMANN: Okay. Good to see you.

PHELPS: Thanks, Steve.

LIEBMANN: Thanks, Kerryn.

Ends