Issue No.

11
25 July 2013

Workshops
SGH-led regional phase III clinical trial on locally advanced liver cancer meets primary safety endpoints On 2nd July 2013 it was announced that the SIRveNIB regional phase III investigator-initiated trial is on track and has met its primary safety end points. Dr Pierce Chow, Senior Consultant, Department of General Surgery, SGH and Professor, Clinical Sciences, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School is the Protocol Chair (Principal Investigator) of the trial. The trial, initiated in 2010 under the Asia-Pacific Hepatocellular Carcinoma Trials Group (AHCC), involves 28 centres in 11 countries including Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Malaysia. It is jointly funded by the National Medical Research Council, Singapore and Sirtex with operational support by Singapore Clinical Research Institute (SCRI). The trial seeks to assess which of two widely used therapies, Sorafenib and SIRSpheres, is more effective in the treatment of locally advanced HCC that has not spread outside of the liver. To date, about 200 patients have been recruited for the 360-patient clinical trial that is expected to complete in 2015. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the 5th most common cancer worldwide with almost 80 per cent of HCC cases found in the AsiaPacific region. Surgery offers patients with HCC the most consistent and significant survival advantage. However, as majority of patients with liver cancer do not develop any symptoms, diagnosis often happens at an advanced stage of the disease; hence surgery is a treatment option in less than one out of five patients.
National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan

How do I get my research message out? Abstract & Manuscript Writing 9th September 2013 Qualitative Workshop: What, Why, How? 10th September 2013 For details contact amri_info@duke-nus.edu.sg

Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong

AMRI Times congratulates Asst/Prof Sharon C. Sung for receiving an NMRC Grant Award. Research proposal is entitled Tools to improve Panic Screening in the Emergency Department (TIPS-ED). Congrats!

Augustus John Rush, Professor and Vice Dean of Clinical Sciences at Duke-NUS, will be retiring from his current position. AMRI Times takes this opportunity to say thank you for the encouragement, guidance and fun he provided throughout his journey with us. Here is a summary of his achievements.

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AMRI@SGH:

The many hats of the clinician-scientist

by Michael Lucas James, 2 August 2013, 12.30pm - 2.00pm at Duke-NUS Boardroom, Level 11 AMRI@KKH: Research Rounds @ KKH

Prof Pierce Chow is Senior Consultant Surgeon at the National Cancer Center Singapore and SGH, and holds joint appointments as Professor in Office of Clinical Sciences and Course Director at Duke-NUS. He is a senior Clinician Investigator with the National Medical Research Council Singapore as well. The AMRI Times caught up with Prof Chow for an entertaining interview and the summary of the interview is as follows: Tell us about your childhood. I come from a small town in Malaysia, Sarawak that was of an ideal size. A town of the ideal size is one small enough so you know who all the pretty girls are but big enough so that there is not too much gossip when they are seen in your company [laughs]. This is a very useful definition. Why liver cancer? The things we choose to do are probably a mixture of interest and opportunities. At that time when I finished my training as a surgeon, liver surgery (or HPB surgery) had just started as a sub-specialty in the hospital. Prof Soo asked if I wanted to try liver, I found it interesting and the two coincided. Actually the liver is a very interesting organ and worthwhile spending your life studying. Of all the organs in the body, the liver is the only organ that regenerates, not the heart or the brain. There were also not a lot of good treatments for liver cancer. Good research could make a worthwhile difference to patients. The basic principle in life is: if you can do it and have the opportunity to do it, then do things that matter. What would you like to do when you have a free day? I have a huge collection of books, DVDs, music CDs that I will never finish because I dont have the time. I would just enjoy my books and my music with a nice cup of coffee. But a free day does not seem to happen. What type of music do you listen to? My favorite easy listening group is Secret Garden. I was really into rock. My favorite group was and still is Scorpion. But my favorite composer is Ennio Morricone. What are some funny incidents that you encountered during your younger days? After our exams, we cycled and found a very nice campsite with some trees and settled for the night. Then in the middle of the night, we found some Dayaks cutting grass next to our campsite. That was a bit unusual but more was to follow when then we heard toom and the natives start scrambling. Then we realized they are collecting durians. We were actually camping right underneath the durian trees. Our flimsy tent would not have protected us [Laughs]. But being the crazy opportunists we were, we stayed put and at every toom, we scrambled for the durians too. The Dayaks werent very happy with us. Fortunately we kept our heads as well as our durians. How would you define your personal work-life balance in terms of ratio? Work-like balance is for wimps. We should do the things we enjoy. If you do the things that you enjoy then you wont need to balance. What is a definition of a workaholic? A workaholic is a person who relaxes by working. That is a true workaholic. Those that do it because they have to do it are not real workaholics. Workaholics are people who enjoy doing it, like John Rush [laughs]. To them, theres no difference between life and work. The real workaholic de-stresses by working and they dont retire. [Laughs] Thats why John Rush cannot retire. [Laughs] What keeps you going when the going gets tough? Actually when the going gets tough, sometimes I feel like giving up. Sometimes I think, why should I continue, I have done enough. But after a good nights sleep, I wake up in the morning and everything is ok again.

Kawasaki Disease in Infants, A Difficult

Diagnosis by Jade Kua Phek Hui, 26 July 2013, 12.30pm - 1.15pm at GMEO Tutorial Room

The PROQOLID database: searching for

patient related outcome measures (PROMs) for research by Dianne Bautista & Sapna Menon, 26 July 2013, 1.15pm - 2.00pm at GMEO Tutorial Room

The many hats of the clinician-scientist

by Michael Lucas James, 1 August 2013 at GMEO Tutorial Room

Yeo CM, Chong VH, Earnest A, Yang WL. Prevalence and risk factors of methotrexate hepatoxicity in Asian patients with psoriasis. World J Hepatol. 2013 May 27;5(5):275-80. Dalan R, Earnest A, Leow MK. Ethnic variation in the correlation between fasting glucose concentration and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). Endocr Pract. 2013 Jun 11:1-20. [Epub ahead of print] Koh Y-X, Chok A-Y, Zheng H-L, Tan C-S, Chow PH, Wong W-K, Goh BP. A Systematic Review and MetaAnalysis Comparing Laparoscopic Versus Open Gastric Resections for Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors of the Stomach. Ann Surg Oncol. 2013 June 21: 1-12. Koh Y-X, Chok A-Y, Zheng H-L, Tan C-S, Chow PH, Wong W-K, Goh BP. A Systematic Review and MetaAnalysis Comparing Laparoscopic Versus Open Gastric Resections for Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors of the Stomach. Ann Surg Oncol. 2013 June 21: 1-12.

Any advice for students who are choosing between clinical or basic research? In fact, you are drawn to one or the other because of your personality. If you dont want to deal with so many difficult to c ontrol things at the same time and you just want to have the scientific problem isolated and deal with only the problem, then you wont want to do clinical research. You will do basic research when (almost) all the parameters can be easily controlled. Translational research is the toughest you get the worse challenges from both worlds. But it is also the most worthwhile doing because the results are very tangible and are useful to patients in a short time. Life is short. You should only do things that matter.

Enabling Research Careers

Editorial Team Dr Silke Vogel, Dr Sumita Anant, Vani Singaram, Megan Pooh Page 2