21st July 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
I know this what we were all led to believe – high salt intake independently contributes to high blood pressure and ultimately, increases cardiovascular disease (CVD). Further, reducing salt intake will reduce blood pressure and thence, cardiovascular disease. We may sometimes wonder how strong the evidence for both statements is. As we ponder about the associations, we may or may not push the message of salt reduction as strongly as we should.…
13th July 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Iron deficiency can occur in a number of scenarios. It can arise from blood loss (gastrointestinal, gynaecological), inadequate dietary sources or limited absorption in inflammatory conditions (e.g CKD, heart failure or diabetes). Oral iron supplements not only can have annoying GI side effects but absorption is poor under the best of conditions.…
31st May 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors and SGLT2 inhibitors have been the cornerstone treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD) for many years now. They have been shown to protect kidneys and at the same time reduce adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Finerenone was recently shown to do the same. These three agents are now the guideline-directed three pillars in the treatment of CKD.…
12th May 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We are used to using colchicine for acute treatment of gout but colchicine has also proven itself a key pharmacotherapy in the treatment of cardiovascular conditions such as pericardial disease (1), post-operative atrial fibrillation (2) and coronary artery disease (3). Colchicine disrupts the inflammatory response in acute gout but the inflammatory pathways that colchicine acts on are also found in other inflammatory diseases including coronary artery disease.…
24th February 2024, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
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.…
13th January 2024, Conjoint A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Amiodarone started life as an anti-angina drug but it’s used primarily for its anti-arrhythmic properties these days. That’s not because it is such a good anti-arrhythmic agent (AAD) but because there just aren’t that many good and safe anti-arrhythmic agents around. We are all aware of amiodarone’s thyroid effects (hypo or hyper) and we monitor them closely as long as they are on amiodarone.…
27th December 2023, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
When we think about extreme physical activity (EPA) such as marathon running, apart from the perceived issue of wearing out knee and hip joints (that’s another issue, another day), we think about the cardiovascular risks or benefits that comes with this intense physical activity. We explored the issue of marathon running and cardiovascular risks 9 months ago here.…
27th December 2023, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Not surprisingly, if dysglycaemia is the major contributor to microvascular complications in type 2 diabetes (T2D), the same complications must plaque our patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D. However, we haven’t had many major advances in the management for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients with T1D for decades.…
2nd November 2023, Spectrum Medical Imaging
There is still many cases of Covid-19 infection sprouting here and there. We are now seeing patients with ongoing cough and we sometimes suspect long Covid amongst them. A high resolution CT (HRCT) of the chest is a CT technique in which thin-slice images of the chest are obtained and post-processed in a high-spatial-frequency reconstruction algorithm.…
28th October 2023, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
It’s all deja-vu again. In January, we discussed the name change from NAFLD to MAFLD. We also discussed how the metabolic dysfunction fatty liver disease (MAFLD) nomenclature and definition were not quite universally accepted internationally. Somehow, we knew that MAFLD was really a temporary placeholder. And indeed, it was and many international bodies have got together since then and put together a consensus nomenclature for metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease or MASLD (pronounced MASL-D).…
11th October, 2023, NIA
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a medical condition associated with significant morbidity and mortality. It is vital that a rapid diagnosis can be acquired since DVT can result in severe complications including the development of pulmonary embolism (PE). The consequences of PE can be life-threatening. About 10% of PEs are fatal and 5% will cause death later despite diagnosis and treatment.…
10th September 2023, Dr Chee L Khoo
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.…