Latest news with #KKH
BusinessToday
28-05-2025
- Health
- BusinessToday
One Drop to Save a Life: Newborn Immune Profiling Goes Micro
(L to R) Dr Genevieve Llanora, Department of Neonatology, KKH; Dr Kerwin Kwek, Research Scientist, SMART CAMP and SMART AMR, holding BLIPI with Assistant Professor Yeo Kee Thai, Senior Consultant, Department of Neonatology, KKH; and Nicholas Ng, Research Engineer, SMART CAMP. A single drop of blood is now enough to provide crucial insights into a newborn's immune system, thanks to a breakthrough device developed by researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH). The BiophysicaL Immune Profiling for Infants (BLIPI) delivers results in under 15 minutes, offering a step forward in the early detection of life-threatening conditions in vulnerable newborns. Premature infants are particularly at risk of serious illnesses such as sepsis and necrotising enterocolitis (NEC). Sepsis, a bloodstream infection, remains a leading cause of infant mortality worldwide, responsible for up to one million deaths each year. NEC, a severe intestinal disease, can be fatal in up to half of affected low birth weight infants. Diagnosis is often difficult, as symptoms are vague and can escalate quickly, making prompt intervention critical. Current diagnostic methods typically require blood samples of up to 1 ml — a significant volume for newborns, especially those born very prematurely with total blood volumes as low as 50 ml. These methods are slow and invasive, often taking hours or even days to yield results. This delay can hinder timely clinical decisions and increase the risk of complications such as anaemia from repeated blood draws. BLIPI addresses these challenges by requiring just 0.05 ml of blood — approximately 20 times less than traditional tests — and producing results at the point of care within 15 minutes. This enables faster, more targeted treatment while reducing the physical burden on fragile infants. (L to R): Assistant Professor Yeo Kee Thai, Senior Consultant, and Dr Genevieve Llanora from the Department of Neonatology at KKH, demonstrating how BLIPI works. In a study published in Pediatric Research, the team demonstrated how BLIPI uses microfluidic technology to detect changes in immune cell size and flexibility, key indicators of immune activity. Unlike conventional tests that focus on identifying pathogens, BLIPI provides direct information about how the immune system responds. Its results strongly align with established inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), white blood cell counts, and neutrophil ratios. The study involved screening 19 infants — both full-term and preterm — at multiple time points. BLIPI detected differences in immune cell characteristics and successfully identified a significant immune response in a premature infant with a severe blood infection. The device's portable design allows it to be used directly in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), eliminating the need to send samples to a laboratory. This makes it especially valuable in rural or resource-limited healthcare settings. Requiring only a single drop of blood, BLIPI is less invasive and better suited for repeated use in ongoing monitoring. Dr Kerwin Kwek, Research Scientist at SMART CAMP and SMART AMR, explained that BLIPI was designed to meet the specific challenges of neonatal care by combining minimal blood requirements with high sensitivity and rapid turnaround. He noted that the device offers clinicians fast, actionable insights using a non-invasive method — a meaningful advance for critical care in newborns. Assistant Professor Yeo Kee Thai, Senior Consultant at the Department of Neonatology at KKH and senior author of the study, added: 'KKH cares for around two-thirds of all babies born weighing under 1,500 grams in Singapore. These infants have immature immune systems and are extremely vulnerable. With BLIPI, a simple heel or finger prick can quickly provide valuable immune data, enabling more precise and timely care.' Looking ahead, the team plans to conduct larger clinical trials to validate BLIPI's accuracy across a broader range of neonatal patients and refine the device for wider clinical use. There is also potential for the technology to support pharmaceutical research, allowing real-time monitoring of immune responses to neonatal treatments. (L to R) Nicholas Ng, Research Engineer, SMART CAMP; Assistant Professor Yeo Kee Thai, Senior Consultant, Department of Neonatology, KKH, holding BLIPI with Dr Kerwin Kwek, Research Scientist, SMART CAMP and SMART AMR; and Dr Genevieve Llanora, Department of Neonatology, KKH. Related
Independent Singapore
15-05-2025
- Independent Singapore
Xishan Primary School says boy was assaulted by his own sibling after mother makes police report about bullying
SINGAPORE: Xishan Primary School has responded to a mother's public allegations that her son and daughter were subjected to bullying and harassment, saying it has investigated the reported incidents and taken steps to support the students involved. The mother, Nurul Al Takhi, took to Facebook and claimed her Primary 3 son had suffered injuries on two separate occasions this year while at school. In one instance, the boy was allegedly pushed and landed on a metal bar fence. He was sent home with an ice pack. Three months later, Nurul said her son was 'assaulted' and subsequently referred to KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH). A police report was made following the incident. Nurul also alleged that her younger daughter, a Primary 1 student, was 'sexually harassed' by a classmate in the school library. According to her, the same classmate later bullied the girl during class and recess, often accompanied by a group of students. The family only became aware of the situation after the girl wrote a letter about the incident, which they discovered the next day. In her post, Nurul expressed frustration over what she described as inconsistent updates from the school. She said her attempts to escalate the matter to the Ministry of Education (MOE) were redirected back to the school. While a police report was lodged, she claimed the authorities were only able to advise the school on possible next steps. 'How can we guarantee our kids' safety in school?' she asked in the post. In response, Xishan Primary School principal Mrs Jane Chng told Stomp that the school is aware of the incidents and has been actively engaged with the family. 'For each incident, we have carried out the necessary investigations, and our teachers have provided the required care and support for our students,' said Mrs Chng. 'We have engaged the parent on multiple occasions and have addressed the concerns with sensitivity and due consideration for all parties involved.' Mrs Chng also clarified that in one of the alleged incidents involving the son, the student responsible was 'one of her other children.' The school said it has reached out to all students involved and their parents to provide continued support, including counselling, close monitoring, and intervention measures as needed. 'The safety and well-being of all our students are taken seriously and any act of violence is not condoned,' Mrs Chng said, 'We are committed to rendering the necessary support to all who are involved and will continue to manage these situations sensitively, balancing respect for the families' privacy with the need to clarify the facts of the incidents.' She added that parents with concerns are encouraged to contact the school directly, and acknowledged that police reports had been lodged. Following the school's response, Nurul updated her original Facebook post to say she had received a reply from the school and considers the matter closed.
CNA
11-05-2025
- Health
- CNA
'Deep sadness': Doctors, nurses recall intensity of treating victims from River Valley fire
SINGAPORE: Just a few hours into her shift on the morning of Apr 8, nurse Lim Zi Ying at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) was pulled from her routine duties to respond to an emergency of unprecedented scale in her 21 years of service. A shophouse along River Valley Road, just 1.8km from the hospital, had caught fire. Inside, multiple people – including children – were trapped. Videos of the rescue, showing victims perched precariously on a narrow ledge on the second storey, quickly went viral and gripped the nation. By late morning, 22 people – 16 children and six adults – had been transported to hospitals. Among them was a 10-year-old Australian girl who later died from her injuries. KKH, located along Bukit Timah Road, and Singapore General Hospital (SGH) at Outram were among the hospitals that received casualties from the blaze. EMERGENCY PROCESSES TRIGGERED Ms Lim, a senior nurse clinician at KKH's Children's Emergency, steeled herself for what proved to be an intense few hours. She and her team raced to prepare the resuscitation room in the emergency department, activating equipment and laying out medication. Casualties from the blaze began arriving via ambulances at around 10.45am. The hospitals cannot reveal the number of casualties they received or the extent of their injuries, but Associate Professor Sashikumar Ganapathy, the head of KKH's emergency medicine department, told CNA that casualties arrived in batches until past noon. He described the logistical challenge of managing an unknown number of incoming casualties. "But that is part of the training right? We are trained to be ready," said Assoc Prof Ganapathy, who is also deputy chairman of the hospital's medicine division. It was his first time receiving paediatric casualties from a fire of such a scale, he said. Over the next few hours, more than nine medical departments were activated, including ear, nose and throat specialists, paediatric anaesthetists and plastic surgeons. Fire-related injuries can lead to severe inhalation trauma in children, making airway management a top priority. For children, it falls to the paediatric anaesthesia team to ensure that the respiratory tract functions normally and the patient's breathing is not obstructed. Treatment included administering medication via face masks, inserting IV lines, managing pain and stabilising breathing. As the leading nurse, Ms Lim also coordinated with senior management to ensure sufficient manpower and resource allocation, while supporting both staff and patients on the ground. Despite it being her first time as the leading nurse in an incident of this scale, Ms Lim said she is grateful that everything went smoothly. "My training in emergency nursing and also dealing with mass casualty incidents has allowed me to be able to stay calm and composed in this kind of situations," she added. Among those called into action was Dr Gale Lim, head of the department of plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery, who had experience managing mass casualties from a coffee shop gas explosion a decade ago. When casualties from River Valley began arriving, the first thing she did was to organise and activate a team of about five doctors and up to eight nurses, who were split between the Children's Emergency and the ICU, where they saw to burn wounds. She knew exactly what they had to do – "carefully and systematically assess" every patient. Her team followed a careful process: removing temporary dressings, assessing and documenting each wound, before 'scrubbing down' – where a layer of the patient's dead skin is removed and the area cleaned up before it is dressed. Doctors typically assess the percentage of total body surface area burns and the depth of burns, before coming up with a treatment plan. More serious wounds could require surgery such as skin grafting, where dead tissue is replaced with healthy skin from another part of the body. PREPARING FOR THE UNKNOWN At SGH, the arrival of paediatric patients – uncommon at the adult-focused hospital – required rapid adaptation. Nurse clinician Muqtasidatum Mustaffa said the situation was complicated by not knowing how many patients to expect. "There was a lot of uncertainty. We just had to prepare our resources, prepare our manpower," she said. Emergency medicine specialist Dr Fua Tzay-Ping added: "It's always good to over-prepare ... from past experience, details may follow as the situation unfolds." The hospital converted areas within its critical care zone to make room for incoming casualties, moving existing patients elsewhere in the department. Staff prepped child-sized equipment and dosages and deployed airway teams, plastic surgeons and neonatology staff before the first ambulance arrived. It was the largest number of casualties from a fire that she had ever dealt with in her more than 20 years at SGH, Ms Muqtasidatum said. "In the back of my mind, I knew that it was going to be a very stressful and challenging situation where we needed to get our resources correct," she said. "We'd have to make quick decisions." To streamline care, a senior physician and senior nurse were assigned to specific cases, with an additional nurse circulating to assist. Once stabilised, paediatric patients were transferred to KKH for further treatment. WAVE OF SADNESS While clinical focus remained the priority during the emergency, emotional tolls emerged later. "Caring for the surge of critically ill paediatric patients was mentally challenging as many of the staff are parents of young children as well," said Dr Fua. The hospital conducted a debrief to help staff process the event. Dr Fua described a wave of sadness that came after her shift, once she watched the viral videos of the fire. "When we are working ... you just think of it as a fire," she said. But the human cost became real later, and she "felt very deep sadness for all those who were affected". She is relieved that her team managed to do its best for every victim, and remains grateful to bystanders who helped in the rescue.
Straits Times
03-05-2025
- Health
- Straits Times
Irregular periods, weight gain and acne: How women take charge of PCOS
Ms Anna Haotanto, founder of a femtech start-up, discovered she had PCOS in 2019. PHOTO: COURTESY OF ANNA HAOTANTO 'PCOS made me feel out of control': How women with this common disease take charge of their health SINGAPORE – For years, Ms Anna Haotanto had irregular or light periods and gained weight easily, but she thought this was common among women. After undergoing egg freezing at age 34, her period stopped for six months, which she found 'weird'. During that time, she gained 8kg in four months and struggled with hormonal acne, fatigue and brain fog. 'I brushed them off as stress-related or just 'normal' for women. But I felt like my body wasn't syncing with me over time,' says the 40-year-old founder of femtech start-up Zora Health, a regional fertility, menopause and family health platform. A medical check-up in 2019 revealed that she had polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a common hormonal disorder among women of reproductive age. 'Mentally, it was exhausting. I'm a high-functioning person, but PCOS made me feel out of control. It also made me question my goals. Could I have a family when I was ready? Would my body cooperate?' adds Ms Haotanto, who is in a relationship. PCOS patient numbers have remained stable at the National University Hospital (NUH) and the dedicated PCOS clinic at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH). About 15 per cent of women globally live with PCOS, making it one of the most common endocrine diseases in women of reproductive age, says Professor Yong Eu Leong, head and emeritus consultant from the Division of Benign Gynaecology in NUH's Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. In the United States and European countries, PCOS is reported to affect between 6 and 20 per cent of women, depending on the diagnosis criteria used, says Dr Veronique Viardot-Foucault, a director and senior consultant in clinical endocrinology at KKH's Department of Reproductive Medicine. British fashion designer Victoria Beckham, British actresses Emma Thompson and Daisy Ridley, and American singer-songwriter Bebe Rexha are among the celebrities who have spoken out about living with PCOS. In Singapore, influencers Mongchin Yeoh, Sahur Saleim and Preeti Nair, as well as fashion entrepreneur Velda Tan, have revealed their PCOS diagnoses on social media. Women with PCOS may have a combination of symptoms involving hormonal imbalances and metabolism dysfunction, which may vary among individuals and change over time, says Dr Viardot-Foucault. These include irregular periods, excessive hair on the face and body, hair loss or thinning scalp hair, oily skin and/or acne, and weight gain. They may also find it difficult to conceive, she adds. Scientists still do not know the root cause and there is no cure. Symptoms vary across ethnicities Prof Yong says recent research has unveiled two main subtypes, although some patients can have both. In Singapore, Chinese women usually have the reproductive subtype. This means they tend to have infrequent periods and irregular menstrual bleeding, without the weight gain and high levels of male hormones. Such patients have a high egg reserve, but the excessive number of antral follicles (immature eggs) results in irregular periods. 'When treated with fertility medications, many of these patients do conceive and go on to deliver healthy babies,' Prof Yong says. The metabolic subtype, on the other hand, is more prevalent in women with roots in the Indian subcontinent and among Caucasians. They tend to put on weight easily, have higher levels of male hormones, and are more prone to insulin resistance and diabetes, he says. Being overweight amplifies their PCOS symptoms and increases the risk of other weight-related diseases like high blood pressure. Although they also have a high egg reserve, their metabolic challenges mean that they tend to have difficulty getting pregnant and have a higher risk of pregnancy complications. 'Patients often suffer from issues related to poor body image, hirsutism, lower fertility, and a tendency towards anxiety and depression,' Prof Yong adds. The PCOS clinic at KKH has been seeing more teenage patients with irregular periods in recent years, but they are too young for a transvaginal ultrasound, one of the standard tools for PCOS diagnosis, says Dr Viardot-Foucault, who is also the clinic's lead. If they have no other symptoms, they are typically monitored and reassessed about eight years after their first period, when they have reached what doctors call reproductive maturity. However, a 2023 local research study helmed by Prof Yong calls for a simplified set of PCOS diagnostic criteria which would allow doctors to treat patients without having to wait until they are old enough for the more invasive transvaginal ultrasound. Being overweight or obese can worsen PCOS symptoms, so lifestyle modifications like a healthy diet and regular exercise should be the first point of discussion before medical interventions, Dr Viardot-Foucault says. 'Studies have shown that losing 5 to 10 per cent of body weight can restore ovulation, regulate the menstrual cycle, improve the chance of pregnancy, and reduce long-term metabolic risks of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases,' she says. Medical treatments for PCOS include birth control pills to regulate menstrual cycles, anti-androgenic medications for unwanted hair growth, and fertility drugs and other interventions for fertility, Prof Yong says. Taking charge of one's health While medical science has improved diagnosis and treatment approaches, women with PCOS say they often have to advocate for their own health. Entrepreneur Maya Kale, 30, was diagnosed early at age 15 as she had all the telltale signs: irregular periods and heavy flow with debilitating cramps and thinning hair on her head. 'I had an absurd amount of facial hair for a teenage girl and was made fun of for my thick eyebrows and 'moustache',' she says. She was put on a contraceptive pill almost immediately to help regulate her periods. It did, but at a cost. Entrepreneur Maya Kale was diagnosed with PCOS when she was a teen. She has improved her health with a low-inflammation diet, low-impact exercise and supplements. PHOTO: COURTESY OF MAYA KALE 'Little did I know the 'period' I was getting on the pill wasn't actually real, and the pill only helped cover up the symptoms I was experiencing, rather than get to the root cause and solve some of those symptoms,' says Ms Kale. The 'period' one gets while using the pill is withdrawal bleeding, which is lighter and shorter than normal menstruation. After four to five years on the pill, Ms Kale noticed changes to her mood and an increase in symptoms of premenstrual syndrome – commonly known as PMS – like breast tenderness, irritability and added anxiety. 'I ignored these for a while, finally got sick of the side effects and took things into my own hands. I dove deep into the world of women's health and natural remedies, and ended up finding a combination of lifestyle, supplemental and diet changes that really worked for me,' she says. Her PCOS journey inspired her decision to create popular supplement brand Moom Health with her sister Mili, 33, in 2021. Besides eating anti-inflammatory home-cooked foods and doing low-impact exercise, she also takes several Moom supplements – including Happy Hormones, which contain inositol, a type of sugar that has been clinically proven to help PCOS. Her periods are now regular and her health has improved. 'As women, we tend to forget to prioritise ourselves and our health, and we let others lead our journeys. It's so important to truly tune in to yourself and put yourself in the driver's seat of your health – nobody else will.' As for Ms Valery Tan, 28, she never associated her irregular periods, weight fluctuations and sugar cravings with PCOS until a recent medical check-up revealed she had the condition. Finding a sympathetic doctor has been difficult, says Ms Tan, co-founder of menopause and midlife platform Surety. One doctor she saw in her early 20s told her she had multiple cysts without confirming her condition or offering further advice. Instead of pushing through one's symptoms, entrepreneur Valery Tan advises women to "rest, recharge and reset". PHOTO: COURTESY OF VALERY TAN Ms Tan now engages in exercises such as spinning, hot yoga, Pilates and barre to manage her weight changes, which had affected her confidence in the past. She tells women with PCOS: 'Weight fluctuations, sugar cravings, low energy – they're not moral failings. They're symptoms of a hormonal imbalance. Recognising that helps reduce shame and reframe the approach. 'Lifestyle adjustments like Pilates, barre or spinning are fantastic. But do them for wellness, not punishment.' Women may tend to push through the fatigue and mood dips that come with PCOS, but she advises: 'Managing PCOS means respecting your energy cycles. Rest, recharge and reset. It is essential.' All three women have since learnt the best way to manage PCOS holistically is with nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management and understanding their cycles. As Ms Haotanto says: 'You are not alone – and it's not your fault. PCOS doesn't define your worth, femininity or future. My biggest surprise was how little awareness and support there are for something that affects so many women. 'Learn about your body, track your symptoms, find your people and don't stop asking questions until you feel seen.' This is the last in a limited series about women's health topics. Stephanie Yeo is senior correspondent at The Straits Times' Life section. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
