27th May 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Hypertriglyceridaemia (HTG) causes and contribute to a number of serious medical conditions including pancreatitis, cardiovascular disease, MAFLD and worsening of type 2 diabetes. The efficacy and treatment options are complicated. Apart from treating any secondary causes, our treatment options are quite limited. Marine-derive omega-3 fish oils, fenofibrate and the new icosapent ethyl are all we have in our tool kit.…
24th May 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
One of the problems keeping up to date in primary care is not being aware of new guidelines that has been released. Well, the joint National Heart Foundation and Cardiac Society of ANZ released the new Australian clinical guideline for diagnosing and managing acute coronary syndromes (ACS) just a month ago (1).…
14th May 2025, NIA Diagnostic Imaging
Coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring is a well-established, non-invasive imaging technique for assessing cardiovascular risk by identifying and quantifying calcified plaque in the coronary arteries. The CAC score, a direct marker of subclinical atherosclerosis, highly predicts future cardiovascular events, making it an essential tool for clinicians in assessing risk, even in asymptomatic individuals. (4, 5)
CAC scoring facilitates early identification of at-risk individuals by providing an objective assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD) burden, allowing for more targeted and proactive cardiovascular health care.…
13th May 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Patients with carotid stenosis either go for intensive medical treatment or carotid endarterectomy. Trials conducted in the 1980s and 1990s have shown that carotid endarterectomy (CEA) can reduced the risk of stroke in patients with symptomatic carotid stenosis of ≥ 50% and to a smaller extent in patients with asymptomatic stenosis, compared with best medical treatment.…
27th May 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We know about type 1 to type 3 diabetes mellitus. I didn’t know that there was a type 4 and now they tell us there is a type 5. For someone who has a special interest in things diabetes, this is definitely news to me. Actually, on further research, it’s actually not that new.…
27th April 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We recently looked at the LDL-C levels needed to stabilise plaque progression and the LDL-C levels needed to cause plaque regression. Plaque stabilisation and regression leads to reduction in cardiovascular events. Dyslipidaemia (especially LDL-C) is also associated with cognitive impairment and dementia and reducing those numbers with statin therapy reduces the risk.…
13th April 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) was first shown to be beneficial in the management of patients with type 1 diabetes. Later on, patients with type 2 diabetes on insulin also found CGM beneficial in more ways than one. Of course, patients with T2D not on insulin also found CGM beneficial. What else can we use CGM for?…
12th April 2025, NIA Diagnostic Imaging
Uterine fibroids, also referred to as leiomyomas, are the most prevalent benign tumors in women of reproductive age, originating from smooth muscle cells in the uterus (myometrium) (1). While benign, uterine fibroids can greatly affect a woman’s daily quality of life (4). Ultrasound is the first-line modality used for diagnosing and characterising these fibroids (5).…
30th March 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
While invasive coronary angiogram is still the gold standard in deciding whether revascularisation is indicated, invasive coronary angiogram has its limitations. That’s why intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) was invented. Well, it’s been 25-30 years since then and we have yet to have IVUS widely available for clinical use. We have additional miniaturised imaging techniques (see below later) since then and they are also not in clinical use as such.…
23rd March 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
I thought I read somewhere many years ago that we don’t have to advocate the traditional 72-hour carbohydrate (carb) loading prior to an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). I have not heard that issue being brought up of late. Well, does it increase or decrease the glucose levels of the OGTT.…
14th March 2025, NIA Diagnostic Imaging
Plantar Fasciitis is the most common cause of heel pain in adults affecting about 10% of the adult population. It is most common in women aged between 40-60 years. It stems from the degenerative irritation of the plantar fascia origin at the medial calcaneal tuberosity of the heel and its surrounding perifascial structures.…
14th March 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
First it’s good then it’s not. We explored the role of colchicine in reducing cardiovascular disease (CVD) back in May 2024 when we looked at the LoDoCo2 trial. At the time, it was hailed as a significant development and colchicine made it into a couple of cardiology guidelines shortly after. Well, a couple of trials later, they are not so sure anymore.…