Displaying publications 1 - 20 of 54 in total

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  1. Ho CC, Jamaludin WJ, Goh EH, Singam P, Zainuddin ZM
    PMID: 21842723
    Ventriculoperitoneal shunts are associated with multiple complications. Among them are disconnection and migration of the tubing into the peritoneal cavity. Here we describe a case of a fractured ventriculoperitoneal shunt which migrated and coiled in the scrotum, masquerading as a scrotal swelling. Removal of the shunt via a scrotal incision was performed concomitantly with repair of the hernia sac.
  2. Tan IK, Ho CC
    Appl Microbiol Biotechnol, 1991 Nov;36(2):163-6.
    PMID: 1368105
    The utilisation of palm oil and its fractions by Penicillium chrysogenum for growth and penicillin production is strain-dependent. Strain H1107 could utilise crude palm oil, its liquid (palm olein) and solid (palm stearin) fractions and its component fatty acids (oleic, palmitic, stearic and myristic) as the main carbon source; strain M223 could not. Cell-bound lipase activity was higher in H1107 than in M223.
  3. Ho CC, Seong PK, Zainuddin ZM, Abdul Manaf MR, Parameswaran M, Razack AH
    Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2013;14(5):3289-92.
    PMID: 23803117
    INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to identify clinical profiles of patients with low risk of having bone metastases, for which bone scanning could be safely eliminated.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective cross sectional study looked at prostate cancer patients seen in the Urology Departments in 2 tertiary centres over the 11 year period starting from January 2000 to May 2011. Patient demographic data, levels of PSA at diagnosis, Gleason score for the biopsy core, T-staging as well as the lymph node status were recorded and analysed.

    RESULTS: 258 men were included. The mean age of those 90 men (34.9%) with bone metastasis was 69.2 ± 7.3 years. Logistic regression found that PSA level (P=0.000) at diagnosis and patient's nodal-stage (P=0.02) were the only two independent variables able to predict the probability of bone metastasis among the newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients. Among those with a low PSA level less than 20 ng/ml, and less than 10 ng/ml, bone metastasis were detected in 10.3% (12 out of 117) and 9.7% (7 out of 72), respectively. However, by combining PSA level of 10 ng/ml or lower, and nodal negative as the two criteria to predict negative bone scan, a relatively high negative predictive value of 93.8% was obtained. The probability of bone metastasis in prostate cancer can be calculated with this formula: -1.069+0.007(PSA value, ng/ml) +1.021(Nodal status, 0 or 1)=x Probability of bone metastasis=2.718 x/1+2.718 x.

    CONCLUSION: Newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients with a PSA level of 10 ng/ml or lower and negative nodes have a very low risk of bone metastasis (negative predictive value 93.8%) and therefore bone scans may not be necessary.

  4. Ho CC, Tan WP, Pathmanathan R, Tan WK, Tan HM
    Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2013;14(7):4057-9.
    PMID: 23991952
    BACKGROUND: Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) testing may be useful to screen for bladder carcinoma or dysplasia by detecting aneuploidy chromosomes 3, 7, 17 and deletion of the chromosome 9p21 locus in urine specimens. This study aimed to assess the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of FISH in a multi-ethnic population in Asia.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients with haematuria and/or past history of urothelial cancer on follow-up had their voided urine tested with FISH. Patients then underwent cystoscopy/ ureteroscopy and any lesions seen were biopsied. The histopathological reports of the bladder or ureteroscopic mucosal biopsies were then compared with the FISH test results.

    RESULTS: Two hundred sixty patients were recruited. The sensitivity and specificity of the FISH test was 89.2% and 83.4% respectively. The positive (PPV) and negative predictive values (NPV) were 47.1% and 97.9%. By excluding patients who had positive deletion of chromosome 9, the overall results of the screening test improved: sensitivity 84.6%; specificity 96.4%; PPV 75.9% and NPV 97.9%.

    CONCLUSIONS: UroVysion FISH has a high specificity of detecting urothelial cancer or dysplasia when deletion of chromosome 9 is excluded. Negative UroVysion FISH-tests may allow us to conserve health resources and minimize trauma by deferring cystoscopic or ureteroscopic examination.

  5. Tan GH, Azrif M, Shamsul AS, Ho CC, Praveen S, Goh EH, et al.
    Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2011;12(10):2727-30.
    PMID: 22320982
    INTRODUCTION: Testicular cancer mainly affects young men worldwide. There is lack of published data on patients with this malignant condition from the Southeast Asian region. The aim of this study was therefore to determine the clinicopathologic features of testicular cancer patients treated in a Southeast Asian university hospital and their overall survival rate.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective study of testicular cancer patients treated between January 2001 and February 2011. Their epidemiological data, clinical presentation, pathologic diagnosis, stage of disease and treatment were gathered and the overall survival rate of this cohort was analyzed.

    RESULTS: Thirty-one patients were included in this study. The majority of them were of Malay ethnicity. The average age at presentation was 33.7 years. The commonest testicular cancer was non-seminomatous germ cell tumour, followed by seminoma, lymphoma and rhabdomyosarcoma. More than half of all testicular germ cell tumour (GCT) patients had some form of metastasis at diagnosis. All the patients were treated with radical orchidectomy. Adjuvant chemotherapy was given to those with metastatic disease. Four seminoma patients received radiotherapy to the para-aortic lymph nodes. The 5-year survival rate for all testicular cancers in this cohort was 83.9%. The survival rate was 88.9% in 5 years when GCT were analyzed separately.

    CONCLUSION: GCT affects patients in their third and fourth decades of life while lymphoma patients are generally older. Most of the patients treated for GCT are of Malay ethnicity. The majority have late presentation for treatment. The survival rate of GCT patients treated here is comparable to other published series in other parts of the world.

  6. Ho CC, Singam P, Hong GE, Zainuddin ZM
    Asian J Androl, 2011 Jul;13(4):537-42.
    PMID: 21643001 DOI: 10.1038/aja.2010.135
    Sex has always been a taboo subject in Asian society. However, over the past few years, awareness in the field of men's sexual health has improved, and interest in sexual health research has recently increased. The epidemiology and prevalence of erectile dysfunction, hypogonadism and premature ejaculation in Asia are similar in the West. However, several issues are specific to Asian males, including culture and beliefs, awareness, compliance and the availability of traditional/complementary medicine. In Asia, sexual medicine is still in its infancy, and a concerted effort from the government, relevant societies, physicians and the media is required to propel sexual medicine to the forefront of health care.
  7. Ho CC, Tong SF, Low WY, Ng CJ, Khoo EM, Lee VK, et al.
    BJU Int, 2012 Jul;110(2):260-5.
    PMID: 22093057 DOI: 10.1111/j.1464-410X.2011.10755.x
    Study Type - Therapy (RCT). Level of Evidence 1b. What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Testosterone deficiency syndrome can be treated with testosterone replacement in the form of injectable, transdermal, buccal and oral preparations. Long-acting i.m. testosterone undecanoate 1000 mg, which is given at 10-14 week intervals, has been shown to be adequate for sustaining normal testosterone levels in hypogonadal men. This study confirms that long-acting i.m. testosterone undecanoate is effective in improving the health-related quality of life in men with testosterone deficiency syndrome as assessed by the improvement in the Aging Male Symptoms scale. Testosterone treatment can be indicated in men who have poor health-related quality of life resulting from testosterone deficiency syndrome.
  8. Ting CY, Ho CC, Yee HJ
    Big Data, 2020 12;8(6):519-527.
    PMID: 33347366 DOI: 10.1089/big.2020.0028
    Recommending a retail business given a particular location of interest is nontrivial. Such a recommendation process requires careful study of demographics, trade area characteristics, sales performance, traffic, and environmental features. It is not only human effort taxing but often introduces inconsistency due to subjectivity in expert opinions. The process becomes more challenging when no sales data can be used to make a recommendation. As an attempt to overcome the challenges, this study used the machine learning approach that utilizes similarity measures to perform the recommendation. However, two challenges required careful attention when using the machine learning approach: (1) how to prepare a feature set that can commonly represent different types of retail business and (2) which similarity measure approach produces optimal recommendation accuracy? The data sets used in this study consist of points of interest, population, property, job type, and education level. Empirical studies were conducted to investigate (1) the overall accuracy of proposed similarity measure approaches to the retail business recommendation, and (2) whether the proposed approaches have a bias toward certain retail categories. In summary, the findings suggested that the proposed similarity-based techniques elicited an accuracy of above 70% and demonstrated higher accuracy when the recommendation was made within a set of similar retail businesses.
  9. Ting CY, Ho CC, Yee HJ, Matsah WR
    Big Data, 2018 03;6(1):42-52.
    PMID: 29570414 DOI: 10.1089/big.2017.0085
    Studies have shown that certain features from geography, demography, trade area, and environment can play a vital role in retail site selection, largely due to the impact they asserted on retail performance. Although the relevant features could be elicited by domain experts, determining the optimal feature set can be intractable and labor-intensive exercise. The challenges center around (1) how to determine features that are important to a particular retail business and (2) how to estimate retail sales performance given a new location? The challenges become apparent when the features vary across time. In this light, this study proposed a nonintervening approach by employing feature selection algorithms and subsequently sales prediction through similarity-based methods. The results of prediction were validated by domain experts. In this study, data sets from different sources were transformed and aggregated before an analytics data set that is ready for analysis purpose could be obtained. The data sets included data about feature location, population count, property type, education status, and monthly sales from 96 branches of a telecommunication company in Malaysia. The finding suggested that (1) optimal retail performance can only be achieved through fulfillment of specific location features together with the surrounding trade area characteristics and (2) similarity-based method can provide solution to retail sales prediction.
  10. Ho CC, Tan HM
    Curr Urol Rep, 2011 Dec;12(6):470-8.
    PMID: 21948222 DOI: 10.1007/s11934-011-0217-x
    Herbal medicine long has been used in the management of sexual dysfunction, including erectile dysfunction. Many patients have attested to the efficacy of this treatment. However, is it evidence-based medicine? Studies have been done on animal models, mainly in the laboratory. However, randomized controlled trials on humans are scarce. The only herbal medications that have been studied for erectile dysfunction are Panax ginseng, Butea superba, Epimedium herbs (icariin), Tribulus terrestris, Securidaca longipedunculata, Piper guineense, and yohimbine. Of these, only Panax ginseng, B. superb, and yohimbine have published studies done on humans. Unfortunately, these published trials on humans were not robust. Many herbal therapies appear to have potential benefits, and similarly, the health risks of various phytotherapeutic compounds need to be elucidated. Properly designed human trials should be worked out and encouraged to determine the efficacy and safety of potential phytotherapies.
  11. Ho CC, Ideris N
    Infection, 2013 Aug;41(4):893-6.
    PMID: 23471824 DOI: 10.1007/s15010-013-0443-x
    Parasite infestation of the testicular tunica and spermatic cord by filariae are rarely reported and may present with few clinical signs, depending upon the stage. Occasionally, it may mimic a testicular tumor. We present a case of a 29-year-old man who presented with left testicular swelling and discomfort for 4 months. Clinical examination and imaging suggested an intrascrotal cystic lesion with a normal left testis. However, the intraoperative findings revealed a tumor-like mass; hence, a left orchidectomy was performed. However, histopathology reported a diagnosis of a cystic testicular tunica and spermatic cord with parasite infection. Here, we review the literature of scrotal and testicular parasite disease and discuss the course of the appropriate management involved.
  12. Yip WK, Cheenpracha S, Chang LC, Ho CC, Seow HF
    Int J Oncol, 2010 Nov;37(5):1229-41.
    PMID: 20878070
    Secondary metabolites from actinomycetes especially the genus Streptomyces may be one of the most important sources for novel anticancer agents. A purified fraction from a novel actinomycete strain, Streptomyces sp. H7372, was elucidated in breast cancer cells. We have isolated three purified fractions from a novel strain, Streptomyces sp. H7372. One of the fractions, designated as 31-2, exhibited the strongest growth-inhibitory effect and thereby was selected for further studies. 31-2 exerted a growth-inhibitory effect on a panel of 15 human cancer and 2 non-malignant cell lines. In MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells, 31-2 induced a cytostatic (anti-proliferative) effect without causing cytotoxicity (cell death). Our data suggest that the cytostasis resulted from cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase in MCF-7 cells and at the S phase in MDA-MB-231 cells. Western blot analysis demonstrated a modulation of phosphorylation of the Rb and CDC2 proteins and of CDK4, cyclin D1 and cyclin D3 in the 31-2-treated breast cancer cell lines. The protein levels of CDK2, CDK6, and PCNA were not affected by 31-2 treatment. 31-2 also exhibited an anti-invasive effect in MDA-MB-231 cells. However, this effect is not attributed to the modulation of proteolytic activity in MDA-MB-231 cells as the enzymatic degradation of type IV collagen was not affected by 31-2. The 31-2 is a potent cytostatic and anti-invasive agent and modulates the cell cycle pathway. Together, these results will have important implications in searching for novel approaches to treat cancer.
  13. Ong SM, Voo LY, Lai NS, Stark MJ, Ho CC
    J Appl Microbiol, 2007 Mar;102(3):680-92.
    PMID: 17309617
    To identify novel microbial inhibitors of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1).
  14. Salem SA, Hwei NM, Bin Saim A, Ho CC, Sagap I, Singh R, et al.
    J Biomed Mater Res A, 2013 Aug;101(8):2237-47.
    PMID: 23349110 DOI: 10.1002/jbm.a.34518
    The chief obstacle for reconstructing the bladder is the absence of a biomaterial, either permanent or biodegradable, that will function as a suitable scaffold for the natural process of regeneration. In this study, polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) plus collagen or fibrin was evaluated for its suitability as a scaffold for urinary bladder construct. Human adipose-derived stem cells (HADSCs) were cultured, followed by incubation in smooth muscle cells differentiation media. Differentiated HADSCs were then seeded onto PLGA mesh supported with collagen or fibrin. Evaluation of cell-seeded PLGA composite immersed in culture medium was performed under a light and scanning microscope. To determine if the composite is compatible with the urodynamic properties of urinary bladder, porosity and leaking test was performed. The PLGA samples were subjected to tensile testing was pulled until PLGA fibers break. The results showed that the PLGA composite is biocompatible to differentiated HADSCs. PLGA-collagen mesh appeared to be optimal as a cell carrier while the three-layered PLGA-fibrin composite is better in relation to its leaking/ porosity property. A biomechanical test was also performed for three-layered PLGA with biological adhesive and three-layered PLGA alone. The tensile stress at failure was 30.82 ± 3.80 (MPa) and 34.36 ± 2.57 (MPa), respectively. Maximum tensile strain at failure was 19.42 ± 2.24 (mm) and 23.06 ± 2.47 (mm), respectively. Young's modulus was 0.035 ± 0.0083 and 0.043 ± 0.012, respectively. The maximum load at break was 58.55 ± 7.90 (N) and 65.29 ± 4.89 (N), respectively. In conclusion, PLGA-Fibrin fulfils the criteria as a scaffold for urinary bladder reconstruction.
  15. Ho CC, Ahmad K
    J Colloid Interface Sci, 1999 Aug 1;216(1):25-33.
    PMID: 10395758
    The effect of metal cations, both nonhydrolyzable and hydrolyzable, on the zeta potential of palm olein emulsions stabilized by the nonionic emulsifier, polyoxyethylene nonyl phenyl ether, was investigated as a function of pH and cation concentrations, respectively. The oil drops were found to be negatively charged in the presence of simple mono- and divalent cations. Charge reversal of the oil drops was observed when hydrolyzable cations (Zn2+, Cu2+, Fe3+, and Al3+) were used and the behavior is strongly dependent on the type of cation, its concentration, and the pH of the dispersion. The results are discussed in terms of current theories of electrophoresis and adsorption-precipitation at interfaces. The chemical free energies of adsorption of the cations were calculated. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.
  16. Tan HM, Tan WP, Wong JH, Ho CC, Teo CH, Ng CJ
    Korean J Urol, 2014 Nov;55(11):710-7.
    PMID: 25405012 DOI: 10.4111/kju.2014.55.11.710
    PURPOSE: The proposed Men's Health Index (MHI) aims to provide a practical and systematic framework for comprehensively assessing and stratifying older men with the intention of optimising their health and functional status.
    MATERIALS AND METHODS: A literature search was conducted using PubMed from 1980 to 2012. We specifically looked for instruments which: assess men's health, frailty and fitness; predict life expectancy, mortality and morbidities. The instruments were assessed by the researchers who then agreed on the tools to be included in the MHI. When there was disagreements, the researchers discussed and reached a consensus guided by the principle that the MHI could be used in the primary care setting targetting men aged 55-65 years.
    RESULTS: The instruments chosen include the Charlson's Combined Comorbidity-Age Index; the International Index of Erectile Function-5; the International Prostate Symptom Score; the Androgen Deficiency in Aging Male; the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe Frailty Instrument; the Sitting-Rising Test; the Senior Fitness Test; the Fitness Assessment Score; and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21. A pilot test on eight men was carried out and showed that the men's health index is viable.
    CONCLUSIONS: The concept of assessing, stratifying, and optimizing men's health should be incorporated into routine health care, and this can be implemented by using the MHI. This index is particularly useful to primary care physicians who are in a strategic position to engage men at the peri-retirement age in a conversation about their life goals based on their current and predicted health status.
    KEYWORDS: Health status indicators; Men; Physical fitness; Retirement
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