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Home > Medical Professionals > Clinical Services > Medical Oncology

Medical Oncology

	Introduction
	Staffing
	Medical Oncology Subspecialties
	Latest Advances in Medical Oncology
	Cancer Care in the Community
	Training Programmes and Partnerships
	Research

Introduction

The Department of Medical Oncology continues to introduce new drugs to treat cancer. Drugs like Herceptin, which improves the chance of survival for many breast cancer patients, are being offered to eligible patients. Overseas patients with diseases that had no effective treatment in the past, such as Glivec-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumour and renal cell carcinoma, now seek treatment here. The number of new patients has increased by 15-20% compared with that in the same period in 2004, consolidating NCCS’ status as a regional clinical trial centre.

Staffing

The Department of Medical Oncology was staffed by 9 Senior Consultants, 7 Consultants, 5 Associate Consultants, 5 Registrars, 7 Research personnel and 3 Administrative staff. The department hosts visiting consultants from government, restructured and private hospitals as well as other specialist centres.

Medical Onco Subspecialties

Inpatient and outpatient clinical services are organised into 9 site-specialised oncology teams focusing on :

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)

Breast Cancer
Lung Cancer
Gynaecological Cancer
Head and Neck Cancer
Gastrointestinal Cancer
Genitourinary Cancer
Lymphoma
Musculo Skeletal
Neuro-oncology

Latest Medical Oncology Advances

Advances in Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among Singaporean women, accounting for a third of all female cancers, and affecting some 2000 women yearly. National statistics show a rising trend in the annual incidence of breast cancer over the last 30 years.
[ Find out more ]

Bone Loss and Breast Cancer
Bone loss is quite common in women. Osteoporosis is as common in Singapore as it is in Western countries and the incidence of hip fractures has risen five times among women in the last 30 years.
[ Find out more ]

Breast Ovarian cancer –all in the family?
Epithelial ovarian cancer is an important female cancer in Singapore and represents an increasing incidence over the last 3 decades, but stabilizing from 1998 to 2002.
[ Find out more ]

Ovarian cancer markers: something old, something new
Ovarian cancer is a malignancy that arises from various different cells within the ovaries. Ovarian cancer is the fourth commonest female cancer in Singapore.
[ Find out more ]

Targeted therapy in Colorectal Cancers
5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) has remained the single most effective systemic agent against metastatic colorectal cancer for the past 40 years. However its efficacy was very limited.
[ Find out more ]

Tailored Comprehensive Screening Programmes
The Neoplasm Interception Programme (NIP) clinic opened this year to provide cancer screenings. NIP is a specialist clinic that nips cancer in the bud through cancer risk evaluation. The comprehensive screening programme is tailored to each individual’s risk profile in the major cancer. An overview of cancer screening
[ Find out more ]

Geriatric Oncology
This new field of subspecialty is committed to the prevention, screening and treatment of cancers in the elderly.
[ Find out more ]

Role of Chemoprevention
Prevention of cancer requires a multi-pronged approach consisting of early detection through screening, lifestyle choices and pharmacological interventions. Chemoprevention, as defined by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, refers to interventions with pharmaceuticals, vitamins, minerals or other chemicals (natural or synthetic) at any of the multiple stages of carcinogenesis to reduce cancer incidence.
[ Find out more ]

Cancer Care in the Community

Care of cancer patients extends beyond oncology centres into the community where primary care is best delivered by family physicians. NCCS places a high priority on developing good working partnerships with our colleagues in the community. As part of our team based multidisciplinary care, each case would be discussed by oncologists at our centre as far as possible. Our discussion bulletins capture select case discussion from these tumour ward meetings and grand ward rounds.
[ Find out more ]

Should you have further questions that require input from our oncologists, we have an ‘ Ask the Experts
[ Find out more ]

NCCS has entered a partnership with Kwong Wai Shiu hospital to provide highly affordable and quality inpatient rehabilitation to cancer patients.
[ Find out more ]

Training Programmes and Partnerships

The Department hosts two overseas fellows/ year keen to learn complex medical oncology procedures. There was collaboration with Indonesian oncologists through the Homepedin organization.

Research

Joint research projects were set up with the Van Andel Research Institute in Michigan, US.

What’s new in local breast cancer research
One central area of local research lies in developing faster, cheaper, and more accurate technologies for breast cancer screening, aimed at detecting breast cancers at an early stage where the disease can be effectively treated by surgery. [ Find out more ]

NCCS ‘kidney cancer research wins ASCO award
Dr Tan had achieved a breakthrough in his research on the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) gene, a tumour suppressor gene. Up to this point, it is generally believed that the loss of function of this gene promotes blood vessel and kidney cancer growth. [ Find out more ]

Cancer vaccine offers hope for ADVANCED colon cancer patients with limited TREATMENT options
Singapore’s first bench-to-bedside therapeutic cancer vaccine clinical trial led by the National Cancer Centre Singapore has shown encouraging results in advanced colon cancer patients. In a unique translational research project in partnership with a biotech company, NCCS and Danish teams of doctors and scientists have developed a high quality dendritic cell (DC) vaccine for the treatment of advanced colon cancer patients. [ Find out more ]

Radio immunotherpay for aggressive non-hodgkin’s lymphoma enter phase III trials
A phase III trial evaluating the efficacy of radio-immunotherapy in the treatment of diffuse large B cell lymphoma – one of the most common forms of affressive non Hodgkin’s lymphoma –is currently underway in Singapore. Dr Lim Soon Thye believes that if the study is positive in would probably change the way we treat patients with aggressive lymphoma.

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