Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 2006

Chinese University Bulletin Autumn · Winter 2006 48 Medical News New Surgical Treatment for Morbid Obesity O besity is a devastating chronic disease that is becoming a major global health and socio-economic issue. One of the traditional types of weight reduction surgery is Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (two-anastomosis gastric bypass), wherein the proximal part of the stomach is divided and connected to the proximal small bowel by Roux-en-Y reconstruction (two-anastomosis). The University’s Department of Surgery has recently introduced laparoscopic mini- gastric bypass (one-anastomosis gastric bypass) to treat morbidly obese patients in Hong Kong in January 2006. Mini-gastric bypass has been shown to be much safer with similar efficacy to Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. More importantly, operation time is shorter and the procedure is more easily performed by laparoscope. Leakage is rare with less incidence of postoperative bowel obstruction. Most patients can be discharged from the hospital within one week with full recovery of bowel function. Breakthrough in Foetal Down’s Syndrome Testing A revolutionary approach for the non-invasive prenatal testing of Down’s syndrome developed by a team led by Prof. Dennis Lo Yuk-ming from the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences of the Faculty of Medicine was reported in the latest issue of the top biomedical journal Nature Medicine . This research was supported by the Innovation and Technology Fund of the Hong Kong SAR government and the Chair Professorship Scheme of the Li Ka Shing Foundation. In 1997, Prof. Lo and his research team discovered for the first time in the world the presence of foetal DNA in the blood plasma of pregnant women. This discovery has opened up new possibilities for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis. Prof. Lo’s team has managed to detect RNA molecules which are copied from a gene located on chromosome 21, and using a novel approach based on the measurement of the ratio of such RNA molecules copied from gene copies which the foetus inherited from the father and mother, has achieved the non-invasive prenatal detection of Down’s syndrome. In cases which can be analysed by this method, the sensitivity and specificity of the test are 90% and 96.5% respectively. These figures represent the highest yet reported for a single test. It is anticipated that with further refinement, this test will be ready for routine utilization in the next few years. (From left) Prof. Rossa Chiu Wai Kwun of the Department of Chemical Pathology, Prof. Tze Kin Lau of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Prof. Dennis Lo Yuk-ming, Director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, and Dr. Nancy Tsui Bo Yin, postdoctoral fellow of the Department of Chemical Pathology