Displaying publications 21 - 40 of 63 in total

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  1. Kumar GS, Mak JW, Lam PL, Tan MA, Lim PK
    PMID: 3129797
    Malarial antibodies in 80 patients were measured using the diffusion-in-gel enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (DIG-ELISA), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and the indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) test. Good correlations were obtained between all three tests in terms of sensitivity and reliability. DIG-ELISA has the advantage of being a rapid diagnostic tool for the detection of malarial antibodies.
  2. Lai NM, Tan ML, Quah SY, Tan EL, Foong KW
    Singapore Med J, 2010 Sep;51(9):724-9.
    PMID: 20938614
    We conducted a retrospective audit on the inpatient assessment and care of children admitted with febrile convulsion to Hospital Batu Pahat, a district hospital in Malaysia, using the Malaysian national clinical practice guidelines and the American Academy of Paediatrics practice parameters on febrile convulsion as the reference standards.
  3. Liao S, Tan M, Li M, Ren J, Wang Y, Zheng R, et al.
    Geriatr Nurs, 2022 Feb 10;44:137-142.
    PMID: 35152066 DOI: 10.1016/j.gerinurse.2022.01.015
    Tai Chi could alleviate depression, while the biological mechanisms underlying this effect remains unelucidated. This study recruited 18 community-dwelling older persons with a pre-post testing design, aiming to unveil the potential epigenetic effect by which Tai Chi in the alleviation of depression, using methylation of BDNF promoter as the biomarker. The methylation levels (determined by pyrosequencing using saliva samples) of the targeted BDNF sequence were positively associated with the existence and severity of depressive symptoms (measured with the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire). Both methylation levels and depression decreased significantly after the Tai Chi intervention. Demethylation of BDNF promoter might be one of the potential mechanisms underlying the holistic depression alleviating effect of Tai Chi. BDNF methylation may potentially serve as a screening, diagnostic as well as disease activity biomarker to determine treatment effects for depression. Further adequately powered studies are needed to verify and strengthen our findings.
  4. Liao SJ, Chong MC, Tan MP, Chua YP
    Geriatr Nurs, 2018 08 31;40(2):154-159.
    PMID: 30173939 DOI: 10.1016/j.gerinurse.2018.08.001
    Depression leads to a poorer quality of life (QOL) which is a determinant of healthy ageing. Cost-effective solutions for enhancing QOL in the older population are much needed in China, with its rapidly ageing population. We conducted a randomized controlled trial involving 112 community-dwelling older participants with mild to moderate depression, to evaluate the effect of Tai Chi with music on QOL (57 in intervention group, 55 in control group). WHO Quality of Life-BREF was used to measure QOL at baseline and at every month for three months. Following the adjustments for sociodemographic data, the effect of intervention on QOL was assured (F = 25.145, P 
  5. Liao SJ, Tan MP, Chong MC, Chua YP
    Issues Ment Health Nurs, 2018 May;39(5):398-402.
    PMID: 29436896 DOI: 10.1080/01612840.2017.1417519
    BACKGROUND: The effectiveness of pharmacological treatment may be limited in older persons. Several studies using Tai Chi or music therapy separately confirmed positive effects in the reduction of depressive symptoms. We conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate the possible synergistic effect of combined music and Tai Chi on depressive symptoms.

    METHODS: One hundred and seven older adults with mild to moderate depressive symptoms were recruited from Ya'an city. Fifty-five participants were cluster randomized to combined music and Tai Chi group for three months, while the other fifty-two individuals were randomized to the control group that entailed routine health education delivered monthly by community nurses. The primary outcome of depressive symptoms was measured with the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) at baseline and monthly for three months.

    RESULTS: At three-month follow-up, a statistically significant improvement in depressive symptoms was found in the intervention group compared with control group (F(3,315) = 69.661, P < 0.001). Following adjustments for socio-demographic data, the true effect of intervention on depressive symptoms was significant (F = 41.725, P < 0.01, ηp2 = 0.574).

    CONCLUSIONS: Combined music and Tai Chi reduced depressive symptoms among community-dwelling older persons. This represents an economically viable solution to the management of depression in highly populous developing nations.

  6. Liew A, Lee CC, Lan BL, Tan M
    Comput Biol Med, 2021 09;136:104690.
    PMID: 34352452 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2021.104690
    Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been used quite successfully for semantic segmentation of brain tumors. However, current CNNs and attention mechanisms are stochastic in nature and neglect the morphological indicators used by radiologists to manually annotate regions of interest. In this paper, we introduce a channel and spatial wise asymmetric attention (CASPIAN) by leveraging the inherent structure of tumors to detect regions of saliency. To demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed layer, we integrate this into a well-established convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture to achieve higher Dice scores, with less GPU resources. Also, we investigate the inclusion of auxiliary multiscale and multiplanar attention branches to increase the spatial context crucial in semantic segmentation tasks. The resulting architecture is the new CASPIANET++, which achieves Dice Scores of 91.19%, 87.6% and 81.03% for whole tumor, tumor core and enhancing tumor respectively. Furthermore, driven by the scarcity of brain tumor data, we investigate the Noisy Student method for segmentation tasks. Our new Noisy Student Curriculum Learning paradigm, which infuses noise incrementally to increase the complexity of the training images exposed to the network, further boosts the enhancing tumor region to 81.53%. Additional validation performed on the BraTS2020 data shows that the Noisy Student Curriculum Learning method works well without any additional training or finetuning.
  7. Liew A, Lee CC, Subramaniam V, Lan BL, Tan M
    J Magn Reson Imaging, 2023 Jun;57(6):1728-1740.
    PMID: 36208095 DOI: 10.1002/jmri.28456
    BACKGROUND: Research suggests that treatment of multiple brain metastases (BMs) with stereotactic radiosurgery shows improvement when metastases are detected early, providing a case for BM detection capabilities on small lesions.

    PURPOSE: To demonstrate automatic detection of BM on three MRI datasets using a deep learning-based approach. To improve the performance of the network is iteratively co-trained with datasets from different domains. A systematic approach is proposed to prevent catastrophic forgetting during co-training.

    STUDY TYPE: Retrospective.

    POPULATION: A total of 156 patients (105 ground truth and 51 pseudo labels) with 1502 BM (BrainMetShare); 121 patients with 722 BM (local); 400 patients with 447 primary gliomas (BrATS). Training/pseudo labels/validation data were distributed 84/51/21 (BrainMetShare). Training/validation data were split: 121/23 (local) and 375/25 (BrATS).

    FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: A 5 T and 3 T/T1 spin-echo postcontrast (T1-gradient echo) (BrainMetShare), 3 T/T1 magnetization prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo postcontrast (T1-MPRAGE) (local), 0.5 T, 1 T, and 1.16 T/T1-weighted-fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (T1-FLAIR) (BrATS).

    ASSESSMENT: The ground truth was manually segmented by two (BrainMetShare) and four (BrATS) radiologists and manually annotated by one (local) radiologist. Confidence and volume based domain adaptation (CAVEAT) method of co-training the three datasets on a 3D nonlocal convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture was implemented to detect BM.

    STATISTICAL TESTS: The performance was evaluated using sensitivity and false positive rates per patient (FP/patient) and free receiver operating characteristic (FROC) analysis at seven predefined (1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 4, and 8) FPs per scan.

    RESULTS: The sensitivity and FP/patient from a held-out set registered 0.811 at 2.952 FP/patient (BrainMetShare), 0.74 at 3.130 (local), and 0.723 at 2.240 (BrATS) using the CAVEAT approach with lesions as small as 1 mm being detected.

    DATA CONCLUSION: Improved sensitivities at lower FP can be achieved by co-training datasets via the CAVEAT paradigm to address the problem of data sparsity.

    LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 2.

  8. Loke YK, Murugesan E, Suryati A, Tan MH
    Med J Malaysia, 1998 Mar;53(1):97-100.
    PMID: 10968145
    The presence of rabies in dogs has been well recognized in areas of Malaysia close to the Thai border but it has rarely ever been reported in Terengganu which is a state on the East Coast of Malaysia. From November 1995 to June 1996 six different rabid stray dogs were found to have been involved in dog bite attacks on 9 members of the public. We report these cases to highlight that rabid dog bites may occur even in areas where the disease is thought to be rate. Medical and veterinary staff must keep the possibility of the risk of rabies in mind when faced with patients who have been bitten by dogs.
  9. Loke YK, Tee MH, Tan MH
    Med J Malaysia, 1998 Mar;53(1):100-3.
    PMID: 10968146
    The formation of Kenyir Lake as part of a hydroelectric project in the 1980s caused much forest area to be submerged. From 1991, underwater divers were employed to log these sunken trees at depths of up to 100 meters. At least 6 mishaps involving underwater logging personnel were recorded from March 1994 to August 1996. We retrospectively reviewed 5 cases who were managed in Hospital Kuala Terengganu. The patients presented with marked cardiorespiratory and neurological disturbances. One diver died in the Hospital while another died at the recompression chamber. Three divers were treated with recompression and improved. Average delay before the start of recompression was 14 hours. Underwater logging has definite dangers and steps must be taken to ensure that both the divers and the equipment are appropriate for the task. Availability of a nearby recompression facility would greatly enhance the management of diving accidents, not only for commercial divers but also for recreational divers who frequent the islands nearby.
  10. Loke YK, Tan MH
    Med J Malaysia, 1998 Mar;53(1):107-9.
    PMID: 10968148
    A 35-year-old Malay man underwent treatment for uveitis of the right eye in 1992 but developed marked visual impairment in the affected eye after he failed to attend follow-up. Two years later, he complained of difficulty swallowing and was found to have left sided X and XI cranial nerve palsies. Chest radiograph showed a cavitating lesion in the lower zone of the right lung field. Inflammation and perforation of the nasal septum was found on examination of his upper respiratory tract. Punch biopsies taken from that area showed chronic inflammatory change and necrotizing vasculities. The patient was diagnosed as having Wegener's granulomatosis and made a very good recovery with immunosuppressive therapy.
  11. Loke YK, Hwang SL, Tan MH
    Ann Acad Med Singap, 1997 May;26(3):285-9.
    PMID: 9285018
    The objectives of this study were to evaluate the time delays between the onset of symptoms and admission to hospital and provision of thrombolytic therapy in patients with suspected acute myocardial infarction; and to examine the accuracy of the clinical diagnosis and the therapeutic decision on thrombolysis in these patients. An observational study of 96 patients with suspected myocardial infarction was undertaken over a period of 15 months in the Coronary Care Unit of Hospital Kuala Terengganu. Seventy per cent of the patients arrived in the hospital within 6 hours of the onset of symptoms. After arrival in the emergency room, it took a median time of 85 minutes before the administration of thrombolytic therapy. Of the 67 patients who were given thrombolysis, 46 were treated within 6 hours of the onset of symptoms. About a quarter of patients said that they had delayed seeking treatment at the hospital. Treatment delays occurring in the hospital were mainly due to admission procedures as well as late diagnosis. Eighty-one patients had confirmed myocardial infarction of whom 59 received thrombolytic therapy. Eight patients receiving thrombolytic therapy had no confirmation of myocardial infarctions. Improvements in diagnostic accuracy and reduction of delays in the provision of thrombolytic therapy could be achieved by better training of health care staff as well as by further streamlining of admission procedures.
  12. Loke YK, Tan MH
    Med J Malaysia, 1997 Jun;52(2):172-4.
    PMID: 10968077
    A 69-year-old lady who was referred by her general practitioner with a diagnosis of food poisoning developed cardiorespiratory arrest shortly after arriving at the Casualty Department. Cardiac output was successfully restored with resuscitation but she had to be mechanically ventilated due to the absence of any spontaneous respiratory effort. Assessment 24 hours after admission, showed fixed and dilated pupils with brain stem areflexia. Her family was told that the prognosis was hopeless. Surprisingly, her condition rapidly improved a day later and she eventually had a good recovery. Her condition was actually due to severe tetrodotoxin poisoning after eating roe of the puffer fish and it was fortunate that appropriate aggressive resuscitation was instituted to revive the patient from her critical state.
  13. Loke YK, Lai VM, Tan MH, Gunn A
    Singapore Med J, 1997 Apr;38(4):166-8.
    PMID: 9269397
    Bizarre electrocardiographic (ECG) changes were found in an 18-year-old girl who had a subdural haematoma following head trauma. The initial diagnosis was of ventricular tachycardia (VT) and she was treated with intravenous anti-arrhythmic drugs and electrical cardioversion, but to no effect. It was later concluded that the ECG appearances were not of a ventricular arrhythmia but were the result of the intracranial pathology. ECG abnormalities related to head injuries have been reported on many occasions, and our case report illustrates how this can create difficulties for the attending clinicians.
  14. Mak JW, Yong HS, Lim PK, Tan MA
    PMID: 3406806
    Biotechnological tools are being used in malaria, filariasis and dengue research. The main emphasis has been on the production of reagents for immunodiagnosis and research. In this respect monoclonal antibodies (McAbs) against various species and stages of the above pathogens have been produced. It is hoped that these McAbs will be useful not only in immunodiagnosis but also for seroepidemiological applications. A DNA probe against Brugia malayi has been tested in Malaysia and was found to be sensitive and specific.
  15. Mundada P, Tan ML, Soh AW
    Med J Malaysia, 2015 Aug;70(4):256-8.
    PMID: 26358025
    Although it is common to have extra-hepatic metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at the time of presentation, it is extremely rare to have extra-hepatic metastatic HCC without a detectable primary in the liver. We report a unique case in which a patient presented with bilateral large adrenal masses which were subsequently proven to be metastases from HCC. However, there was no tumour seen in the liver on imaging.
  16. Nisha M, Aiman M, Asyhira N, Syafiq H, Atiqah N, Kumarasamy V, et al.
    Trop Biomed, 2020 Jun 01;37(2):379-388.
    PMID: 33612807
    Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) could possibly cause mild to severe health effects such as diarrhea, weakness, intestinal blood loss, and impaired cognitive development and growth. In Malaysia, previous studies depicted a high prevalence rate of STH was due to poor hygiene practice and low efficacies of anthelminthic drugs. This study was conducted to investigate hand hygiene practice and WASH criteria's (Water, sanitation and hygiene) related to STH infection among two indigenous tribes in Peninsular Malaysia. A cross-sectional study was carried out to study the relationship among STH infection compared to water quality, sanitation, and hygiene conditions. A total of 190 individuals from two indigenous villages participated in the study, with ages ranging from 5 to 60 years old. In addition, Pearson's Chisquare (X2) test was utilized to test the relationship among STH with demographic socioeconomic and behavioral factors. The confidence interval (CI) of 95% is used to estimate the precision of the odds ratio (OR). Multivariate logistic regression models were also used to identify the risk factors associated with STH infections. The overall findings indicated a prevalence rate of 72% for STH, and distributed mainly among children aged < 12 years. Furthermore, multivariate analyses using logistic regression revealed chronic health problems, incorrect hand washing, and walking bare footed were associated with STH infection. Overall results indicated high prevalence of STH among the indigenous villagers, which aligns with the published literature and proves to be a problem need to be addressed as neglected disease. Interestingly, there was a significant relationship between the presences of chronic diseases and STH infection, which prompted other questions the awareness needs to be educated and the simple and low-cost intervention on the proper way of hand washing may help to reduce STH infection in these indigenous communities.
  17. Pham MD, Haile BA, Azwa I, Kamarulzaman A, Raman N, Saeidi A, et al.
    J Clin Microbiol, 2019 04;57(4).
    PMID: 30700508 DOI: 10.1128/JCM.01683-18
    HIV viral load (VL) testing is the recommended method for monitoring the response of people living with HIV and receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). The availability of standard plasma VL testing in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and access to this testing, are limited by the need to use fresh plasma. Good specimen collection methods for HIV VL testing that are applicable to resource-constrained settings are needed. We assessed the diagnostic performance of the filtered dried plasma spot (FDPS), created using the newly developed, instrument-free VLPlasma device, in identifying treatment failure at a VL threshold of 1,000 copies/ml in fresh plasma. Performance was compared with that of the conventional dried blood spot (DBS). Venous blood samples from 201 people living with HIV and attending an infectious disease clinic in Malaysia were collected, and HIV VL was quantified using fresh plasma (the reference standard), FDPS, and DBS specimens. VL testing was done using the Roche Cobas AmpliPrep/Cobas TaqMan v2.0 assay. At a threshold of 1,000 copies/ml, the diagnostic performance of the FDPS was superior (sensitivity, 100% [95% confidence interval {CI}, 89.1 to 100%]; specificity, 100% [95% CI, 97.8 to 100%]) to that of the DBS (sensitivity, 100% [95% CI, 89.4 to 100%]; specificity, 36.8% [95% CI, 29.4 to 44.7%]) (P 
  18. Romli MH, Tan MP, Mackenzie L, Lovarini M, Suttanon P, Clemson L
    Public Health, 2017 Apr;145:96-112.
    PMID: 28359399 DOI: 10.1016/j.puhe.2016.12.035
    OBJECTIVES: The older population in the Southeast Asian region is accelerating and is expected to surpass the proportion of the ageing population in North America and Europe in the future. This study aims to identify the research literature related to falls among older people in Southeast Asia, to examine current practice and discuss the future direction on falls prevention and interventions in the region.

    STUDY DESIGN: A scoping review design was used.

    METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted using the Medline, CINAHL, AMED, Ageline, PsycINFO, Web of Sciences, Scopus, Thai-Journal Citation Index, MyCite and trial registries databases.

    RESULTS: Thirty-seven studies and six study protocols were included, from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. One-sixth of the studies involved interventions, while the remainder were observational studies. The observational studies mainly determined the falls risk factors. The intervention studies comprised multifactorial interventions and single interventions such as exercises, educational materials and visual correction. Many of the studies replicated international studies and may not have taken into account features unique to Southeast Asia.

    CONCLUSION: Our review has revealed studies evaluating falls and management of falls in the Southeast Asian context. More research is required from all Southeast Asian countries to prepare for the future challenges of managing falls as the population ages.

  19. Saedon NI, Pin Tan M, Frith J
    J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 2020 01 01;75(1):117-122.
    PMID: 30169579 DOI: 10.1093/gerona/gly188
    BACKGROUND: Orthostatic hypotension (OH) is associated with increased risk of falls, cognitive impairment and death, as well as a reduced quality of life. Although it is presumed to be common in older people, estimates of its prevalence vary widely. This study aims to address this by pooling the results of epidemiological studies.

    METHODS: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, Web of Science, and ProQuest were searched. Studies were included if participants were more than 60 years, were set within the community or within long-term care and diagnosis was based on a postural drop in systolic blood pressure (BP) ≥20 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥10 mmHg. Data were extracted independently by two reviewers. Random and quality effects models were used for pooled analysis.

    RESULTS: Of 23,090 identified records, 20 studies were included for community-dwelling older people (n = 24,967) and six were included for older people in long-term settings (n = 2,694). There was substantial variation in methods used to identify OH with differing supine rest duration, frequency and timing of standing BP, measurement device, use of standing and tilt-tables and interpretation of the diagnostic drop in BP. The pooled prevalence of OH in community-dwelling older people was 22.2% (95% CI = 17, 28) and 23.9% (95% CI = 18.2, 30.1) in long-term settings. There was significant heterogeneity in both pooled results (I2 > 90%).

    CONCLUSIONS: OH is very common, affecting one in five community-dwelling older people and almost one in four older people in long-term care. There is great variability in methods used to identify OH.

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