12th December 2019, Dr Chee L Khoo
EMPA-REG, CANVAS, DECLARE-TIMI 58 and VERTIS-CV are cardiovascular outcome trials (CVOTs) originally designed to demonstrate non-inferiority of SGLT2 inhibitors versus placebo on major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). These clinical trials involving a total of > 36,000 patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) followed for 2–5 years. Patients treated with a SGLT2 inhibitor experienced a 25–35% lower risk of hospitalisation for heart failure (HHF).…
8th December 2019, Dr Chee L Khoo
Anaemia is quite common in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Disruption in the production of erythropoietin is not the only cause. Iron deficiency, uremia, chronic inflammation and gastrointestinal (G) loss are the common the other causes of anaemia in these patients. After excluding GI losses, current treatment consists of iron replacement and the use of erythropoietin stimulating agents (ESA).…
26th November 2019
The symptoms of acute osteomyelitis include pain, swelling, warmth and redness over the affected part. Sometimes, there are systemic signs of fever and fatigue. Plain xrays may review osteolytic lesions, periosteal reaction or may be totally normal. Sometimes, we may need to resort to MRI to clinch the diagnosis. This month’s case illustrate the difficulty with diagnosis when the symptoms and signs are not straight forward.…
24th November 2019, Dr Chee L Khoo
It’s not often that we report on trials with negative results but this trial attracted my attention because of many issues it raised when the top-line results were announced in the Journal of American Medical Association a fortnight ago. The conclusion states “supplementation with vitamin D3 or omega-3 fatty acids, compared with placebo, resulted in no significant difference in change in eGFR at 5 years.…
23rd November 2019, Dr Chee L Khoo
Treatment of helicobacter pylori infection (HPi) has been shown to reduce the incidence of gastric cancer (GC) worldwide (1,2). HPi may cause chronic inflammation which can lead to precancerous conditions. Since HPi is not always symptomatic and many patients may have untreated HPi for decades. Surely, if you have untreated HPi for decades, you might still be at risk of GC years down the track despite eradication of the infection.…
14th November 2019, Dr Chee L Khoo
Oral therapy for T2D – navigating the PBS maze
During our recent GP Diabetes Injectable Masterclass Workshop, I noted that there was a lot of uncertainty and confusion in relation to what oral agents can be combined under the PBS. This uncertainty and confusion can only lead to hesitation to escalate treatment in patients whose glycaemic control is suboptimal.…
13th November 2019, Drs Chee Khoo & Sobhy Khalil
We have a contribution from our GP colleague this week. Dr Sobhy Hakeem KHALIL who thoroughly studied the ADA/EASD Management of Hyperglycaemia In Type 2 Diabetes, 2018 Consensus Report and provided his take on the guidelines. I have added my comments to his take (in blue):
PAE is an embolisation procedure. It is a new application of a longstanding tried and tested technology. Embolisation is the deliberate occlusion of vessels in the body, in this case the arteries to the prostate. The objective of PAE is to stem the blood flow to the prostate, targeting the enlarging tissue and rendering it ischaemic (reduced supply of oxygenated blood).…
27th October 2019. Dr Chee L Khoo
In medicine, newer is usually better although sometimes, we can be sceptical whether “newer” means a sneaky way to extend patents. The newer, second generation insulins, Toujeo® (insulin glargine U300 or GLA-300) and Degludec® are truly better insulins. Diabetes Therapy recently published a practical guide to the use of these second generation insulins (1).…
27th October 2019. Dr Chee L Khoo
Imagine you are the interventional cardiologist. You are asked to perform a percutaneous coronary intervention for a symptomatic coronary artery stenosis with a view of inserting a stent for the tight stenotic lesion. As the coronary angiogram is being performed, you discover that there are more than one stenotic lesion. Do you stent the symptomatic lesion alone as was originally intended or do you stent all the other incidentally found stenotic lesions?…
27th October 2019. Dr Chee L Khoo
We often hear about cardiovascular outcomes trials (COVT) involving the new anti-diabetic agents – the SGLT2 inhibitors, the DPP4 inhibitors and the GLP1-RAs. The CVOTs were meant to ensure that the agents do not have significant major adverse cardiovascular outcomes (MACE) when we prescribed them for patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). All make sense as we need to make sure that post Phase 2 trials when these agents are used in hundreds of thousands of patients, they don’t cause more harm that good.…
11th October 2019. Dr Chee L Khoo
We all know that weight management is not as simple as a calories in calories out equation. Increasing nut consumption in particular, in theory, can cause weight gain because of nuts’ energy density but it doesn’t always translate to weight gain. In fact, a recent study showed the opposite – increased nut consumption actually is associated with reduced long term weight gain.…