8th April 2022, Dr Chee L Khoo
CVD is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). There are many hundreds of cardiovascular risk prediction tools around. Well, whenever you have many versions of a particular tool, it usually tells us that none of them are particularly good in what they are meant to do – that is to predict the risk of a cardiovascular event.…
12th March 2022, Dr Chee L Khoo
When you look at the management of patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), almost all the patients are on a statin for both primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular complications. I suspect that those that are not already on a statin should be on as some doctors are not aware of the tightened lipid targets in the management of patients with T2D.…
6th March 2022, Dr Chee L Khoo
This is about the potential cardiovascular complications after contracting covid-19 infection. It is coined “the Covid Heart”. A recent analysis of data from 154,000 US veterans one year out from their covid-19 infection have highlighted some scarry statistics. Naturally, you would expect that those who had more severe disease had higher risks of cardiovascular complications but these complications affect patients who are not hospitalised.…
27th February 2022, Dr Chee L Khoo
Homozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia (HoFH) is one of those conditions that allow us to prescribe the new PCSK9 inhibitors under PBS Authority. It is a pretty rare inherited disorder resulting in extremely elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) levels and significantly elevated risk of premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Despite the extreme high risks, HoFH is usually go unrecognised and if recognised are diagnosed late and undertreated.…
13th February, 2021, Dr Chee L Khoo
One of the signs of getting old is that you are increasingly drawn to articles about efforts to reduce the effects of aging on health and age-related conditions. The positive effects of direct urolithin A (UA) administration in health, aging, and age-related conditions have been identified in several recent studies. UA is a gut microbiome derived natural compound that only 40% of people can naturally convert from dietary precursors at meaningful levels.…
27th January 2022, Dr Chee L Khoo
At GPVoice, we have covered the management of heart failure fairly comprehensively over the last couple of years. In particular, we explored the cardiovascular benefits of SGLT2 inhibitors in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) especially in patients with heart failure. Initial studies looked at patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) although subsequent studies found the benefits was also seen in patients with preserve ejection fraction (HFpEF) although only empagliflozin has reported.…
26th January 2022, Dr Chee L Khoo
How many reps have you seen recently promoting their bronchodilators? It’s all very confusing to me with the LAMA/LABA combo and now they have inhaled corticosteroids in the triple combo puffers. Who are these puffers for? Initially, they suggest triple therapy for COPD but they are now recommending the same for patients with severe asthma if the traditional LABA/ICS combo is not controlling the asthma.…
25th December 2021, Dr Chee L Khoo
There is increasing evidence that supports an inverse association between statin use and cancer risk. The findings for prostate cancer, particularly advanced disease, are the most promising of all cancers studied. There are studies suggesting the usefulness of statins in secondary and tertiary prevention. For example, patients undergoing radiotherapy for prostate cancer improved their prostate specific survival if they are on statins.…
11th December 2021, Dr Chee L Khoo
Cataract is a leading cause of blindness worldwide, affecting more than 35 million people globally and causing blindness in approximately 20 million. Visual impairment is an important dementia risk. Addressing sensory loss from visual impairment that affects older adults may be a potentially modifiable risk factor for dementia in late life (1,2) Because sensory impairments and dementia are both strongly associated with aging the link between sensory impairment and dementia may have important implications for individual and global public health, particularly if interventions to improve sensory function reduce dementia risk (3).…
29th November 2021, Dr Chee L Khoo
One of our biggest fears is missing an atrial fibrillation (AF) and patient is discharged from hospital following their first embolic stroke. Almost all the automatic sphygmomanometers do not check for cardiac rhythm and I make it a point to put a finger on the pulse each time to make sure patients are in sinus rhythm.…
13th November 2021, Dr Chee L Khoo
The authority to prescribe a PCSK9 inhibitors for patients with resistant hyperlipidaemia under the PBS continues to be pretty complicated. We tried to simplified those numerous criteria back in December 2020 here when the criteria were “loosened” somewhat. This has facilitated my prescription of this important drug in those patients who have really, really high cardiovascular risk.…
2nd October 2021, Dr Chee L Khoo
We generally see two categories of patients with high lipids, one who had normal lipids earlier on in life but developed high lipids later in life because of modern living and one whose lipids were already high when they were young (and slim and fit). Most of the scientific studies linking high lipids with cardiovascular (CV) events look at lipid levels at a snap point in time, at enrolment and the follow up period just aren’t long enough.…