Dr Anselm Lee is Consultant Paediatric Haematologist-Oncologist at Children’s Haematology and Cancer Centre, ParkwayHealth, Singapore. He recently shared his views on this three-fold subject area at a seminar organised by ParkwayHealth.
His expertise is Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT). This is also known as Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). It is a medical process in haematology and oncology often treated on people with disorders of blood, bone marrow and mostly cancer.
Dr Lee helped established the paediatric BMT program in Queen Mary Hospital and started the first paediatric BMT in the hospital that year. He performed the first BMT for thalassaemia, a severe form of congenital anaemia that is common in Southeast Asia, India and Lee performed the first case of umbilical cord blood transplantation in Hong Kong. In 1995 in response to the needs for a growing population in another part of Hong Kong, Dr Lee moved Tuen Mun Hospital where he restructured a paediatric haematology and oncology service, establishing a successful team and providing a quality and world class service to a population of 1 million.
HSCT is required mainly for three diseases: Acute Leukaemia, Neuroblastoma and Thalassaemia. This process includes both mature and immature forms. And also stem cells. Stem cells or Bone Marrow when infused can repopulate damaged bone marrow.
He treats cancers in children including leukaemia, brain cancers, lymphomas, neuroblastomas (cancers of the adrenal gland), Wilms tumour (cancers of the kidney) rhabdomyosaromas (cancers of the skeletal muscles) and other sarcomas, germ cell tumours (cancers of the testis, ovaries and related organs, bone, liver, retinoblastomas (eye cancer) and other tumours.
HSCT is an answer to malignancies such as Leukaemia, Neuroblastomas, Advanced Solid tumours and recurrent cancers, but has negative features too. First you have the complications of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Infections. Graft rejection and drug toxicities are some of them.
Dr Anselm Lee had his initial training in London 19 years ago. He first graduated from the University of Hong Kong and underwent his postgraduate training in the Department of Paediatrics, Queen Mary Hospital, the university of Hong Kong. His subspecialisation in paediatric haematoloy and oncology started in 1990. As a Croucher Foundation Fellow, he underwent training in paediatric oncology and bone marrow transplantation (BMT) in the Institute of Child Health Department of Haematology and Oncology, the Great Ormon Street Children’s Hospital in London.
Lots of students select all these three subjects basically because they have lost interest in the reduced number of patients.
And on the other hand local health does not have enough facilities. It needs looking after patients and then it becomes more of a family thing. Lots of students do not like to delve in family affairs.
In Singapore the specialists are less than 10. But in London you get quite a number of specialists. Dr Lee has been to Sri Lanka twice.
“I think Sri Lanka has many qualified doctors. But technology wise to be honest they are quite lagging behind. They need a little more training as well for that reason,” he said.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/05/11/fea25.asp
