1)         Local Health News

a)         25 years ... and still going strong

TDY (p10) reported that by 2014 when NUH's medical centre will be set up, the hospital will boast 6,500 staff - about 1,000 more than its current strength.  The report featured Ms Ng Sow Chun, who has been with the hospital since the beginning in 1985. From a junior nurse then, she had progressed through the ranks to become assistant director of nursing. She is among 125 employees to be honoured at the NUH's gala dinner. Asked how nursing had changed over the past 25 years, Ms Ng said patient care has become more complex and patients' expectations have gone up. It has not been just all work for employees like Ms Ng. She took a year off in 1992 to do her bachelor's degree in nursing in Australia, and studied part-time for her master's in health science in 1999. Since 2007, she is a part of NUH's lean management team looking into streamlining processes to improve patient care.

b)         S'pore 3rd country to get new ovarian cancer test

TDY (p19) reported that the fight against ovarian cancer received a shot in the arm with the development of a new diagnostic test. Called OvPlex, and developed by Australian biotechnology company HealthLinx Limited in association with Healthscope, the kit uses blood to detect ovarian cancer. The company claims that the new diagnostic test is able to detect ovarian cancer at an early stage with more than 90 per cent sensitivity and specificity, making it more effective at picking up early-stage cancer than the commonly-used kit known as CA-125, which detects less than 50 per cent of cases. Costing $300, the test is expected to be available for use at major hospitals and clinics island-wide by the end of the year.  The noted that the new blood test was launched by Innovations Exchange (Inex), a leading women's health molecular diagnostic spin-off from the NUS. TV News and ZB (p9) carried similar reports. ZB added that compared to the existing blood test, the new diagnostic test can reduce the chance of an inaccurate diagnosis by 30 per cent.

2)         Online Reactions & Discussions

a)         Imperial College plans its first overseas institution

Temasek Review carried a snippet from BBC on the upcoming third medical school. Comments left wondered whether the joint development will work out.

3)            Other Health News

a)         Sugar as pain relief to newborn babies a big no-no, says study

TDY (p48) reported off The Guardian that doctors should stop giving newborn babies sugar to relieve the pain of minor medical procedures because it does not work and might damage their brains, new research in The Lancet Medical Journal warned. Its conclusions directly challenge existing medical practice. In hospitals around the world, infants are routinely given tiny amounts of sugar as a way of limiting the pain they feel when they undergo short but painful procedures. Ms Neena Modhi, a professor of neonatal medicine at Imperial College London and vice-president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: "This is an important study. Sucrose is given because it seems to work. If it's confirmed that sucrose doesn't work, we have a problem because we don't have any effective treatments for acutely painful procedures in newborns." She added that a bigger study, involving more babies, was needed and drug companies should speed up the development of such treatments.

b)         New TB test that's faster, more accurate

ST (pB17) reported off AP and Bloomberg that according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists have discovered a new and revolutionary TB test that can reveal results in two hours including if the TB is resistant to the main drugs used to treat it. Currently the WHO is reviewing the study to decide whether to recommend the device in control programmes. The test involves taking a mucus sample from the patient, mixing it with chemicals and putting it in an inkjet-like cartridge that goes into a machine which amplifies the DNA in the sample and checks for bits of bacterial genes. The study was tried on 1,730 patients with suspected TB in Peru, Azerbaijan, South Africa and India. The test successfully identified 98 per cent of all confirmed TB cases and 98 per cent of cases resistant to rifampin, one of the top drugs to treat the disease. It also picked up nearly three-quarters of TB cases that were mistakenly declared negative and accurately ruled out TB in 99 per cent of people who did not have it.

c)         Botox maker to pay US$600m to settle charge

BT (p4) reported off NYT that the maker of anti-wrinkle agent Botox has reached a US$600 million settlement with deferral prosecutors in Atlanta and agreed to plead guilty to illegal promotion of the product. Under the agreement, Allergan Inc will plead guilty to a misdemeanour charge of "misbranding" Botox by persuading physicians to prescribe it for unapproved uses. It was noted that the company illegally marketed Botox to treat headaches, pain, cerebral palsy in children and spasticity, a disorder of the central nervous system.

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