Management of fatty liver disease – what works?

30th June 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

MASLD

Just in case you are not aware, there will be a tsunami of patients with metabolic dysfunction associate fatty liver disease (MAFLD) or metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) coming to you over the next few years. Part of the reason is to do with the better recognition of the condition and we are now detecting them more with biomarkers, imaging and a high index of suspicion.…

Childhood dyslipidaemia – what happens to these kids?

30th June 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

childhood dyslipidaemia

We advocate applying protective sunscreens for little babies onwards because most of the sun damage starts from young and often, we fight a losing battle trying to rescue severe sun damaged skin in later life. It wouldn’t be any different in dyslipidaemia in children and adults. When you think about it, it really doesn’t matter what age you are.…

Coronary CT Angiogram – should we be ordering more?

10th June 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

coronary CT angiogram

Identification of individuals at high risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular events is actually quite challenging in practice. There are many predictive algorithms which try to assess the cardiovascular risk of an individual. These scoring systems are based on the traditional risk factors that we all know well – lipids, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, family history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), age and gender but unfortunately, we still don’t fully understand an individual’s susceptibility to the atherogenic vulnerability.…

Should older T2D continue their metformin?

13th April 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

Metformin

We are all used to metformin being the first line glucose lowering agent when type 2 diabetes (T2D) is diagnosed. (Well, I know some you also use metformin before diabetes is diagnosed but that’s a different story). Glucose lowering efficacy of metformin is not that terrific as we now have much stronger glucose lowering agents available.…

BP control – a novel way to address medication adherence?

24th February 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

BP Control

We all know how important it is for BP control in prevention cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and renal complications. We are also aware of the difficulty is improving medication adherence. We have a broad range of effective BP lowering medications covering diverse classes of medications. Anti-hypertensives work only if our patients take them regularly.…

Sarcopenia – can we measure it and how bad is it?

10th December 2023, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

Old and weak?

We don’t get old and weak. Actually, if we get weak, we become old. We all see that in practice. It doesn’t matter how old our patient is. When they become weak, they slow down. They can’t walk very far and they don’t. They become weaker and weaker. They have difficulty get off a chair.…

LDL-C – is lower necessarily better?

9th December 2023, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

Atherosclerosis

We know how effective statins are in lowering cholesterol levels. Lowering of cholesterol levels, especially LDL-C, have been shown to incrementally reduce adverse cardiovascular events in patients with atherosclerotic disease. We have data to show that for every 1 mmol/L of LDL-C reduction there is a 23% reduction in cardiovascular events, which means, the lower the better (1).…

Acne – the ABC of management in primary care

27th November 2023, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

Although moderate to severe acne is pretty common in primary care, our management tends to be haphazard. We have our favourite topical and oral therapy but I am not sure that that is evidence-based nor pathophysiological in our approach. When all else fails, we refer on to our friendly dermatologist. I recently attended a brilliant lecture at the Melbourne GPCE presented by Dr Ryan de Cruz, a Melbournian dermatologist.…

Genetic carrier screening on MBS now – what does that mean?

25th November 2023, A/Prof Chee L Khoo

genetic carrier screening

Reproductive genetic carrier screening for cystic fibrosis (CF), spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and fragile X syndrome (FXS) has become available on the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS). Screening for those three conditions is recommended for all couples prior to, or in the early stages of pregnancy. Great but what is this genetic screening all about?…

Precision medicine in diabetes – are we there yet?

30th October 2023, Dr Chee L Khoo

Precision

When we think about precision medicine, we usually think about some fancy, expensive genetic tests that can help us determine ahead of time who is at risk of some serious diseases. This may allow us to target these patients early and reduce morbidity and mortality. There is connotation that only the rich in rich countries can afford these tests and once again, patients in low and middle income countries (LMIC) will miss out on these state of the art expensive tests.…

COPD – which puffer/s?

10th September 2023, Dr Chee L Khoo

COPD

We looked at the new understanding of the pathophysiology of COPD last fortnight. Armed with that information, we may be able to make sense of which puffer to use for which patient and what to escalate during their exacerbations. We already do that but, I must admit, rather haphazardly. It, kind of, depends on what samples I have in the drug cupboard or when the last pharma rep came to sell their ware.…

That receding hairline – what treatment is best?

Androgenetic Alopecia

13th August 2023, Dr Chee L Khoo

Many of the male doctors are slowly losing the battle against male pattern alopecia. It’s either thinning or receding. For those who are not there yet, it’s coming. We are also seeing women joining the club. Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is the most common form of hair loss in humans affecting 80% of Caucasian men and 50% of Caucasian women.[1].…