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Biomedical subjects

F C Ng

Publications and source records attributed to F C Ng.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1993

Experience with laparoscopic cholecystectomy at the Toa Payoh Hospital.

A retrospective analysis was done of 88 cases of laparoscopic cholecystectomy performed by the first author from November 1990 to March 1992 at the Toa Payoh Hospital. There were 61 female and 27 male patients; the average age was 47.1 years. The most common presenting symptom was biliary colic (85.3%), followed by acute cholecystitis (10.2%) and gallstone pancreatitis (4.5%). In the vast majority of patients, the diagnosis was established by ultrasound (96.6%) while the remainder was diagnosed by oral cholecystography (3.4%). The operation was performed using the usual 4 puncture approach with the single-handed technique of dissection. Antibiotic prophylaxis with a broad-spectrum agent was used in all patients and there was no incidence of wound infection. A low complication rate of 4.5% was experienced--consisting of 1 case each of subcutaneous emphysema, abdominal colic, fever and bile duct injury. There was no mortality in our series. The conversion rate was 9.1% and this was due to our policy of performing laparotomy whenever the safety of laparoscopic surgery was in doubt. The mean duration of postoperative hospitalisation was 3 days and 7 days after laparoscopic and converted cholecystectomies respectively. The majority of patients (61.4%) returned to work after 2 weeks.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Adenosquamous carcinoma of the ileum--a case report.

Small bowel malignancies are very uncommon and adenosquamous carcinomas of the small intestine are extremely rare. We report the second case of an adenosquamous carcinoma of the ileum in a 77-year-old Chinese male.

Aged↗
PubMed1992

Pulsed dye laser lithotripsy--the Toa Payoh Hospital experience.

We report our experience with pulsed dye laser lithotripsy in the treatment of 100 ureteric stones in 95 patients over a 14-month period from July 1989 to September 1990. The overall rate of successful stone fragmentation was 97%. There was a low incidence of minor complications--mild haematuria, ureteric colic and urinary tract infection; ureteric perforation occurred in only 3 patients, all of whom were successfully treated conservatively. Pulsed dye laser lithotripsy is a safe and effective mode of treatment for ureteric stones. Current indications for laser fragmentation of stones are ureteric stones, impacted pelviureteric junction stones and Steinstrasse.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Erectile dysfunction in Singapore men: presentation, diagnosis, treatment and results.

Three hundred and thirteen new cases were seen in more than two years at the Sexual Dysfunction Clinic at the Division of Urology, Toa Payoh Hospital (TPH). Patients were assessed by history, clinical examination, psychological evaluation, hormonal and biochemical tests; special investigations such as monitoring of nocturnal penile tumescence, cavernosography, selective pudendal arteriography and tests of neurological function were performed where indicated. Two hundred and twenty-seven patients (72.5%) had impotence due to organic causes while 86 patients (27.5%) were found to have psychogenic impotence. Diabetes mellitus and vascular disease account for the large proportion of organic impotence (81%). Patients with psychogenic impotence responded fairly well to psychosexual therapy and drug treatment in certain cases. Forty-four patients underwent medical therapy which consisted mainly of pharmacologically induced penile erections by the use of papaverine, phentolamine or prostaglandin E-1; 21 patients (48%) who were on self-injection therapy became non-compliant subsequently. One hundred and fourteen andropausal patients with low testosterone levels received hormonal replacement. Thirty-one patients underwent surgery--stripping and ligation of the deep dorsal vein of the penis (13 patients), microsurgical arterial revascularisation (two patients) and penile prosthetic implantation (16 patients). Our success rates for the operations were 54%, 100% and 88% respectively.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Operative cholangiography.

Retrospective analysis of 174 operative cholangiograms done over a 3-year period confirms its substantial benefit when used selectively in patients with clinical criteria for common bile duct exploration. A low incidental ductal stone rate of 1.6%, together with a 3.3% false positive cholangiogram rate and a case of bile duct injury resulting from the procedure makes its routine application appear superfluous.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Statistical analysis of healthy and malignant breast thermography.

Analysis of thermograms has often been subjective and has resulted in inconsistency in the diagnosis of breast diseases by thermography. The aim of this paper is to study the problem of subjective interpretation of breast thermograms and hence using thermography as an adjunct tool for breast cancer diagnosis. It ws proposed that the thermograms should be taken within the recommended screening period, classified and analysed in conjunction with an artificial neural network (ANN). Qualitative interpretation of thermal images can be carried out using an active contours algorithm. The 256 x 200 pixel image can be segmented as one of the inputs to the ANN. To achieve quantitative analysis of the breast thermograms, firstly the inputs of the ANN should be determined, so that the thermograms could be successfuly classified and based on the suggested inputs.

Body Temperature↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Computerized detection of breast cancer with artificial intelligence and thermograms.

This paper shows the concurrent use of thermography and artificial neural networks (ANN) for the diagnosis of breast cancer, a disease that is growing in prominence in women all over the world. It has been reported that breast thermography itself could detect breast cancer up to 10 years earlier than the conventional golden methods such as mammography, in particular in the younger patient. However, the accuracy of thermography is dependent on many factors such as the symmetry of the breasts' temperature and temperature stability. A woman's body temperature is known to be stable in certain periods after menstruation and it was found that the accuracy of thermography in women whose thermal images are taken in a suitable period (5th - 12th and 21st day of menstruation) is higher (80%) than the total population of patients (73%). The stability of the body temperature will depend on physiological state. This paper examines the use of ANN to complement the infrared heat radiating from the surface of the body with other physiological data. Four backpropagation neural networks were developed and trained using the results from the Singapore General Hospital patients' physiological data and thermographs. Owing to the inaccuracies found in thermography and the low population size gathered for this project, the networks developed could only accurately diagnose about 61.54% of the breast cancer cases. Nevertheless, the basic neural network framework has been established and it has great potential for future development of an intelligent breast cancer diagnosis system. This would be especially useful to the teenagers and young adults who are unsuitable for mammography at a young age. An intelligent breast thermography-neural network will be able to give an accurate diagnosis of breast cancer and can make a positive impact on breast disease detection.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Clinical safety profile of sildenafil in Singaporean men with erectile dysfunction: pre-marketing experience (ASSESS-I evaluation).

Safety and tolerability of sildenafil citrate was assessed in a population subset of 60 Singaporean men with erectile dysfunction taken from the Asian Sildenafil Efficacy and Safety Study (ASSESS-I), a double-blind, placebo-controlled, flexible-dose study. The men, from two centres, with > or = 6 months' history of erectile dysfunction, were randomized to two treatment arms for 12 weeks. One group (30 patients) received sildenafil (initial dose 50 mg taken 1 h before sexual activity for the first 2 weeks, increased to 100 mg or decreased to 25 mg, according to efficacy and/or tolerability). The remaining 30 patients received a matching placebo. Incidence and type of adverse effects were evaluated at 2, 4, 8 and 12 weeks. Nine patients (30.0%) on sildenafil (33.1% in the full ASSESS-I study) and one patient (3.3%) on placebo (22.8% in the full ASSESS-I study) experienced treatment-related adverse events, the most frequent being headache in the sildenafil group (reported by five patients [16.7%]; 11.0% in the full ASSESS-I study). Flushing, visual disturbance, dizziness, insomnia, myalgia and back pain each occurred in one patient in the sildenafil group (3.3%); in the placebo group, one patient (3.3%) had headache. Importantly, the incidence of cardiovascular and respiratory system adverse events were relatively less than in the full ASSESS-I population (cardiovascular 3.3% in the present study versus 10.2% in the full ASSESS-I population; respiratory 3.3% versus 5.5%). All adverse events were transient and mild, and did not lead to treatment withdrawal. There was no effect on sitting blood pressure, heart rate or standard laboratory parameters; more importantly, there was no incidence of myocardial infarction, stroke or priapism. These results should reassure Singaporean patients and their physicians of the safety of sildenafil for erectile dysfunction.

Adult↗