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Micronutrients and kidney health

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a structural and functional disorder of the kidney caused by many diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension and glomerular disease.1...

Incorporating assessment of fibrinogen gene polymorphisms and bleeding risk in patients treated with direct oral anticoagulants

Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have become entrenched as the dominant anticoagulant over the last decade for patients with venous thrombosis and atrial fibrillation.1 Compared...

Association between self-care and chronic kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Dear Editor, Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the key complications occurring in 25–40% of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).1 Our...

Low skeletal muscle mass predicts poor prognosis of elderly patients after emergency laparotomy: A single Asian institution experience

Emergency laparotomy (ELAP) for elderly patients is associated with higher mortality and increased postoperative complications compared with those undergoing elective surgery.1-3 Elderly patients, who...

High burden of respiratory viral infection-associated mortality among critically ill children

Dear Editor, Acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs) are a leading cause of under-5 mortality globally—two-thirds could be attributable to respiratory viral infections (RVIs).1,2 The burden...

White precipitate in a dialysis circuit

An 81-year-old man who had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 was admitted to the medical intensive care unit on day 5 of his COVID-19-induced...

Palliative dialysis in hospice: A paradox or promising answer?

Dear Editor, End-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients have higher mortality, hospital admissions and invasive procedures towards the end of life.1 However, many of them (82%)...

Health economics of kidney replacement therapy in Singapore: Taking stock and looking ahead

Burden of ESKD in Singapore. The incidence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 5 in Singapore increased by 31% from 383.9 per million population...

Comparison of planned-start, early-start and deferred-start strategies for peritoneal dialysis initiation in end-stage kidney disease

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is a well-established long-term dialysis modality for patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD).1 It is recommended that a PD catheter should...

Identifying high-risk hospitalised chronic kidney disease patient using electronic health records for serious illness conversation

In-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients is shown to have lower survival1 and a higher proportion of survivors on maintenance...

Death and cardiovascular outcomes in end-stage renal failure patients on different modalities of dialysis

End-stage renal failure (ESRF) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, including Asia.1 In Singapore, incidence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage...

Survival outcome of haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is a challenging and growing health issue, with number of patients increasing globally. The use of dialysis has greatly improved...

Risk Factors for Predicting Mortality in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit

Following the rapid advances in medical therapy and critical care technology over the past 30 years, coupled with the spiralling cost of medical care,...

Infections in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia

Children undergoing chemotherapy for cancer are especially vulnerable to infection because of immunosuppression related to their underlying illness, the effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy....

Malaria Requiring Intensive Care

Malaria is an important and common infectious parasitic disease globally. It is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, especially in endemic areas. This article is...

APACHE II and SAPS II are Poorly Calibrated in a Hong Kong Intensive Care Unit

The Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) and the new Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS II) scoring systems are widely used...

Impact on Quality of Patient Care and Procedure Use in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) Following Reorganisation

Critical care is costly as it is labour intensive and involves expensive life support technology. In the United States, the intensive care units (ICUs)...

Survey of Aerobic Bacterial Infections in Paediatric Surgical Intensive Care Unit Patients

Data on infections in paediatric surgical patients are few in the literature. Although there are many studies on infection in adult surgical and paediatric...

Hospitalised Low-risk Community-acquired Pneumonia: Outcome and Potential for Cost-savings

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a common illness with nearly 4 million adults diagnosed each year in USA with more than 600,000 hospita1isations. The associated...

Long-term Outcome and Disease Control in Near-fatal Asthma

Rising trends in mortality in asthma have been reported from many countries, including Asian countries such as Hong Kong. Asthma deaths have been associated...

Extended Resection of Locally Advanced (T4) Stomach Cancer

Cancer is the most common cause of death in Singapore. Although there is a gradual decline in incidence of stomach cancer over the years,...

Adverse Operative Risk Factors for Perforated Peptic Ulcer

Although there has been a significant decline in elective surgery for peptic ulcer disease with the introduction of H-2 blocker, the incidence of peptic...

Isolated Non-compaction of Ventricular Myocardium: A Report of Three Cases

Non-compaction of ventricular myocardium is a rare morphogenic arrest of compaction of the ventricular myocardial fibres during intrauterine life. Usually, the left ventricle is...

Quality of Life in Long-Term Survivors of Intensive Care

Intensive care has undergone rapid technological advancement in recent years enabling complex treatment of patients of advanced age and/or with advanced chronic diseases underlying...

Limitation of Life Support in the Critically Ill: The Hong Kong Perspective

Technological advances over the last 30 years have had an enormous impact on the way in which medicine is delivered today. This is particularly...

Obstetric Admissions to the Intensive Therapy Unit of a Tertiary Care Institution

Pregnancy is associated with physiological changes in various organ systems and complications arising from the interaction between these changes and disease processes may be...

Abdominal Complications after Cardiac Surgery

Despite intensive therapeutic efforts, both the incidence and mortality of gastrointestinal complications after cardiac surgery employing cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) have not decreased during the...

Myocardial Infarction in Singapore: A Nationwide 10-year Study of Multiethnic Differences in Incidence and Mortality

Rapid urbanisation and increasing affluence have improved the socioeconomic status of Asians. This, however, has brought with it new socioeconomic and medical problems resulting...

Rheumatic Heart Diseases in Pregnancy

Rheumatic heart disease comprises acute rheumatic fever following group A beta-haemolytic streptococcal infection of the tonsillopharynx, and its long-term sequelae of heart valve fibrosis...

Management of Thromboembolic Disease in Pregnancy

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) refers specifically to 2 related entities: deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism. The management of arterial thrombo-embolism, in particular that...

Influenza in Singapore: Assessing the Burden of Illness in the Community

Influenza is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Morbidity in the working age group gives rise to frequent doctor visits and considerable...

Evaluation on the Use of a Portable Unit Versus the Laboratory for the Monitoring of International Normalized Ratio (INR) in Orally Anticoagulated Patients

Oral anticoagulation therapy is used for a number of conditions, namely deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, mechanical heart valves, embolic stroke as well as...

Epidemiology of Beta-haemolytic Group G Streptococcal Bacteraemia in Singapore (1996 to 1998)

Human isolates of group G streptococci (GGS) that form large colonies are similar to group A streptococci (GAS) in terms of virulence and cause...

Osteoporotic Hip Fractures in Singapore—Costs and Patient’s Outcome

Singapore is facing a rapidly ageing population. Osteoporosis, which is an age-related illness, will become an increasing problem. Osteoporotic hip fracture, because of the...

Critically Ill Elderly Who Require Mechanical Ventilation: The Effects of Age on Survival Outcomes and Resource Utilisation in the Medical Intensive Care Unit of a General Hospital

Increasing life expectancy and ageing of the “post-war baby boomer” generation have led to the rapidly ageing demographic of many Asian countries. Singapore’s elderly...

Medical Therapy in Heart Failure – Is Polypharmacy Necessary?

The clinical syndrome of heart failure is recognised by a characteristic pattern of haemodynamic, renal, neural and hormonal responses. Heart failure is the end-stage...

Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest in Adults Undergoing Aortic Surgery: Local Experience

The use of deep hypothermic circulatory arrest (DHCA) as a method of cerebral protection during aortic surgery was first described in 1975. Its use...

Severe Adult Chickenpox Infection Requiring Intensive Care

Chickenpox (varicella) in adults can be severe. It is frequently associated with pneumonia and immunosuppression as well as increased mortality rates. This article is available...

Neuroblastoma Screening in Japan: Population-based Cohort Study and Future Aspects of Screening

This article is available only as a PDF. Please click on “Download PDF” on top to view the full article.

Early Predictors of Mortality in Pneumococcal Bacteraemia

Streptococcus pneumoniae infection is the most common cause of community-acquired pneumonia worldwide.1 It has been associated with an approximately 10% rate of bacteraemia.2-4 Despite...

Nephrologists-led intervention increases utilisation of peritoneal dialysis in Singapore

Dear Editor, Over the past decade, the utilisation of peritoneal dialysis (PD) among end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients in Singapore has been persistently low...

Upper Limb Ischaemia – A Single Centre Experience

Upper limb ischaemia is an uncommon entity which presents less commonly as compared to lower limb ischaemia, and has a wide range of aetiology...

A 5-year Profile of Trauma Admissions to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit of a Tertiary Hospital in Singapore

Our tertiary hospital has a 9-bed Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) that caters to all surgical disciplines except Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Surgery (which has...

Causes of Death in Hospitalised Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-infected Patients at a National Referral Centre in Singapore: A Retrospective Review from 2008 to 2010

The advent of the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) era has greatly reduced the mortality and incidence of new diagnoses of acquired immune deficiency...

Antibiotic Therapy and Clinical Outcomes of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (PA) Bacteraemia

Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) is a virulent nosocomial pathogen and PA bacteraemia is associated with high mortality ranging from 18% to 59%. It is ranked...

A 10-Year Profile of Trauma Admissions Caused by Interpersonal Violence: A Major Trauma Centre’s Experience

The World Health Organization (WHO) has divided violence into 3 categories: interpersonal violence, self-directed violence, and collective violence. Violence is defined as “the intentional...

Outcomes of second-tier rapid response activations in a tertiary referral hospital: A prospective observational study

Despite its widespread adoption, rapid response systems (RRS) and rapid response teams (RRT) vary significantly in composition and set-up.1-3 While implementation of RRSs appear...

Neonatal Outcome of the Late Preterm Infant (34 to 36 Weeks): The Singapore Story

Neonatologists were caught looking the other way in the early part of the millennium. While they were keenly following the progress of extreme preterms...

Epidemiology and Clinical Evolution of Liver Cirrhosis in Singapore

Cirrhosis is the common end result of chronic damage to liver parenchyma caused by a variety of liver diseases. It results in replacement of...

An External Independent Validation of APACHE IV in a Malaysian Intensive Care Unit

Over the past 30 years, different versions of severity of illness scoring systems and prognostic models have been developed for prediction of patient outcomes...

Heterogeneity of non-cystic-fibrosis bronchiectasis in multiethnic Singapore: A prospective cohort study at a tertiary pulmonology centre

Bronchiectasis is a chronic lung disease of significant morbidity and mortality. The pathological hallmarks of the disease are abnormal dilatation of airways resulting from...

Empagliflozin-induced severe osmotic nephrosis and acute renal injury in advanced chronic kidney disease

Diabetic kidney disease remains a significant disease burden globally and is associated with increased medical costs once chronic kidney disease (CKD) ensues. Therefore, optimisation...

Survival and Predictors of Mortality in Acute Kidney Injury Patients Treated with Sustained Low Efficiency Dialysis

Approximately one in ten patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) develops acute kidney injury (AKI), an important complication of ICU patients, and...

Impact of Chronic Kidney Disease on Outcomes in Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation

With improvements in device technology as well as increasing experience, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has replaced open surgical aortic valve implantation as the...

Characteristics and Outcomes of COVID-19 Patients with Respiratory Failure Admitted to a “Pandemic Ready” Intensive Care Unit – Lessons from Singapore

This article is available only as a PDF. Please click on "Download PDF" to view the full article.

How to Feed the Critically Ill—A Review

This article is available only as a PDF. Please click on "Download PDF" to view the full article.

Managing a Renal Transplant Programme During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Practical Experience from a Singapore Transplant Centre

As infrastructure and policies were being put in place to combat COVID-19, we recognised that specialty-specific policies and protocols had to be drawn up...

Obesity in COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an ongoing global pandemic infection by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is established that increasing...

Impact of cardiovascular diseases on severity of COVID-19 patients: A systematic review

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly from China to other countries around the world, with the World Health Organization characterising it as a...

PLA2R1 and HLA-DQA1 gene variations in idiopathic membranous nephropathy in South China

Membranous nephropathy is an organ-specific autoimmune disease and is the most common cause of adult-onset nephrotic syndrome. The diagnosis of membranous nephropathy mainly depends...

Metformin use in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease: An evidence-based review

Diabetes is a chronic disease characterised by elevated levels of blood glucose. The most common type of diabetes is type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)....