Gastro Care 4 U

Gastro Care 4 U Dr. Alex Leow is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist.

Medicine cures the disease; the doctor's heart heals the patient.良药愈病，医者疗心❤
https://www.pantai.com.my/doctor/gastroenterology-and-hepatology/dr-alex-leow-hwong-ruey

Inaugural IBD Connect – Intestinal Ultrasound Workshop for GPs. Done. 👍14 general practitioners. The first GP intestinal...
02/08/2026

Inaugural IBD Connect – Intestinal Ultrasound Workshop for GPs. Done. 👍

14 general practitioners. The first GP intestinal ultrasound workshop ever held in Malaysia concluded today.

The logic behind this initiative is simple: many GP clinics are already equipped with ultrasound machines and are already scanning for the fetal, liver, and gallbladder. The hardware is there. The bowel isn't part of the skill set yet.

IBD is rising in our region, and the first door a patient walks through is a GP clinic, not a tertiary hospital. So today we talked about the red flags in chronic diarrhoea, non-invasive testing, and hands-on intestinal ultrasound: no prep, no sedation, no radiation needed for bowel ultrasound.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly encouraging. By teaching GPs to perform targeted screening IUS, scanning the right and left iliac fossa, we hope to see earlier referral of patients with abnormal bowel wall thickening at the terminal ileum and sigmoid colon, the segments most commonly involved in IBD.

Thank you, Dr Thomson Lim Chong Teik from Singapore General Hospital, and Dr Mohd Fairul bin Limun from Hospital Kuala Lumpur, for taking the time to teach. Thank you and our hospital staff, AEN-IBD IUS Academy, the Malaysia Society for IBD (MyIBD), Ferring Malaysia and Samsung for making it happen. And thank you to our healthy volunteers and our patients, who let 14 pairs of new hands learn on them. 🙏

Not a one-off initiative. There will be more—we are already planning the next one.
Malaysia Society for IBD
Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur

🌏 IBUSXP Guangzhou the 1st ever IBUSXP IUS Workshop in Asia! 🇨🇳Deeply honoured to be invited as faculty for this histor...
12/07/2026

🌏 IBUSXP Guangzhou the 1st ever IBUSXP IUS Workshop in Asia! 🇨🇳

Deeply honoured to be invited as faculty for this historic milestone — the Guangzhou International Symposium on IUS in IBD & IBUSXP Masterclass, held 11–12 July 2026.

China is at the forefront of intestinal ultrasound in clinical practice. I was truly amazed by the depth of ultrasound knowledge and scanning skills of the participants, these are experienced IUS performers, each with hundreds of procedures behind them.
That's exactly what makes this IBUSXP so meaningful. The goal was never to teach IUS from scratch, it was to align highly skilled Chinese scanners with the IBUS systematic scanning protocols and standardized reporting, so that we all speak the same language. When a bowel wall thickness measured in Guangzhou means the same as one measured worldwide, IUS becomes a truly global, trial-ready monitoring tool for IBD.

Privileged to share the faculty with Prof. Gao Xiang and Prof. Liu Guangjian (The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University), Prof. Christian Maaser (Lüneburg), Dr. Mariangela Allocca (Milan), Prof. Joyce Mak (CUHK), Dr. Edmund Wu and Dr. Michael Ko (Hong Kong).

Grateful to IBUS, the Beijing Health Promotion Association, and The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University for making this happen.
Soon we will see many IBUS trainers emerging from China and greater Asia. The future of IBD monitoring is point-of-care — and Asia is not just joining that future. Asia is helping to lead it.

As it was a short trip, I only managed to visit the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall (陈家祠) — sharing some photos of this beautiful piece of Lingnan heritage. 📸

01/07/2026

There's a bacteria that quietly lives in millions of stomachs, and most people don't know they have it.
Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a leading cause of gastritis, ulcers, and long-term, a real risk factor for stomach cancer.
The catch? It spreads within families. One positive test often means the whole household should check.
The good news? A simple breath or stool test detects it, and one course of treatment clears it.
Recurring gastric pain, or a family member just diagnosed? Please get tested. 💙
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
有一种细菌,悄悄住在很多人的胃里, 而大部分人根本不知道。
「幽门螺杆菌」(H. pylori)是慢性胃炎、胃溃疡的主要原因之一,长期还会增加胃癌风险。
关键是:它会在家人之间传染。一个人验出阳性,全家可能都需要检查。
好消息是:一次简单的呼气或粪便测试就能诊断,一个疗程就能清除。
反复胃痛,或家人刚被诊断?请去检查一下。💙

28/06/2026

🇭🇰 IDDF Hong Kong 2026 — A Trip to Remember 🇭🇰
Truly humbled by an incredible time at the International Digestive Disease Forum 2026.
A first that I'll never forget: We performed the 1st live intestinal ultrasound demonstration of Crohn's disease, capturing a bowel wall thickness of 6.8mm with a Modified Limberg Score 3 Doppler signal. We also showcased the unique power of SMI (Superb Microvascular Imaging) to detect fine mural vascularity.
The contrast between normal and diseased bowel was striking, and we visualised both colon and small bowel in real time — bringing the concept of point-of-care ultrasound right to the bedside.
🙏 It was a privilege to have Dr Joyce Mak moderate our live demonstration session. Thank you for guiding the discussion so beautifully.
🤝 It was also a genuine honour to stand between two giants of the field of IBD, Prof Walter Reinisch (Austria) and Prof Marietta Iacucci (Ireland) — to present on sequencing therapy in Crohn's disease: choosing the right drug, at the right time, for the right patient.
❤️ But beyond the science, it was the people that made this trip special.
So good to reconnect with old friends in HK, Prof Henry Chan, who back in 2015 taught me not just about the liver, but the finer art of taking a nice selfie 🤳 In fact, my very first selfie ever was together with him!
A special honour meeting Prof Joseph Sung, a dear friend of my late mentor, Prof K L Goh. While performing my live demonstration at Prince of Wales Hospital, I caught sight of Prof Goh's photo on the Wall of Fame , a quiet, full-circle moment.
And wonderful to meet another giant in IBD, Prof Ng Siew Ching, always good to meet a fellow Penangnite on foreign land! 🌸
A real pleasure too to meet Prof Emad El-Omar.
Great too to catch up with fellow Malaysian Prof Yeong Yeh Lee, and lovely to see Prof Ishihara, Prof Parit Mekaroonkamol, Prof Andrew Ong, and Prof Chun-Ying Wu at IDDF 2026. Always a pleasure.
And to so many more dear friends — Prof Vincent Wong, Prof Grace Wong, Prof Anthony Teoh, Prof Raymond Tang, Dr Shannon Chan, Dr Charing Chong, and many, many more.....Eternal Friendship!

Starting off the inaugural AOCC–IBUS Advanced Module 3 in Seoul! 🇰🇷 Great to reconnect with friends and colleagues from ...
25/06/2026

Starting off the inaugural AOCC–IBUS Advanced Module 3 in Seoul! 🇰🇷 Great to reconnect with friends and colleagues from across the IBUS community, and an honour to present "What's New in IUS in UC." Exciting times for intestinal ultrasound in Asia.

Wonderful faculty: Kayal Vizhi Nagarajan (India), Yoon-kyo An (Australia), Alex Hwong-Ruey Leow (Malaysia), Joyce Wing Yan Mak (Hong Kong), Kerri Novak (Canada), Sung Wook Hwang (Korea), Shintaro Sagami (Japan), Ryan Mathias (Australia) & Mariangela Allocca (Italy).


# AOCC2026

11/06/2026

Grateful for a few days in Milan at an international IBD meeting with rich exchange with colleagues from around the world on how we monitor disease, pursue mucosal healing, and turn trial data and real-world evidence into better decisions at the bedside.

I was fortunate to be assigned to the group moderated by Professor Tim Raine — and proud to share that our group placed 3rd for engagement at the meeting.

A wonderful programme chaired by Professor Remo Panaccione and Professor Jean-Frédéric Colombel. It was a truly enriching experience that beautifully combined academic excellence, creativity, fun, and meaningful learning.

Lovely to catch up with friends Taku, Jakob Begun, and Krisztina Gecse, our Malaysia–Singapore contingent — Professor Ida, Jonathan, Thomson, and making new friends in the meeting- Roland Eisele from Germany.

I was also glad to share some Asian perspectives on IBD care including the cultural barriers that shape how patients understand and engage with their disease, and how we navigate them in our part of the world.

Intestinal ultrasound was heavily discussed and repeatedly highlighted as an important tool for monitoring IBD. I shared some of the real hurdles to adoption across Asia, where clinicians often run heavy-volume clinics with little room to add scanning. One practical way forward: training sonographers to fill the gap, so the strengths of intestinal ultrasound can reach more patients without overwhelming already-stretched clinics.

The key poitns are the window of opportunity. Early, effective intervention and tight monitoring toward clear targets can genuinely change a patient's trajectory with fewer flares, less irreversible damage, better quality of life.

I'm bringing this home to my patients to improve the care of every IBD patient we see.

Managing IBD is an art — fittingly mirrored in the artistic theme of this meeting, set against Italy's rich creative heritage. Great meeting. Great creativity.

This is why we travel thousands of miles: to learn, so we can heal better. 良药愈病，医者疗心.

07/06/2026

The honest probiotic answer most companies won't give you: they work but only specific strains for specific conditions. The strongest evidence is for antibiotic-related diarrhoea (LGG, S. boulardii). For "general gut health" in someone with no symptoms, the evidence is thin. Right strain, right reason or save your money.

关于益生菌,大部分厂商不会告诉你的实话:它们确实有效 — 但只对特定的菌株、特定的状况才有效。证据最强的,是用来预防抗生素引起的腹泻(LGG、S. boulardii)。但如果你没有任何症状,只是想「保养肠胃」,那么证据其实非常薄弱。
对的菌株,对的理由。不然,就把钱省下来吧。

#益生菌

05/06/2026

One of my nurses told me this week that her kids said, "It's Dr Alex again. He always wants to start cases so early." She laughed. I laughed. Then it sat with me.
When a procedure goes smoothly. When patients tell me the nurses were kind, the team was warm, everything just worked, that isn't luck. It's a group of people who have given up part of their morning, their evening, sometimes their family time, so that your care runs the way it should.
This one is for them. The nurses. My anaesthetic colleagues. The endoscopy team. The porters, the cleaners, the assistants. The people who arrive before the lights come on and stay until the last patient is safe.
And it is also for the families at home, the kids who notice when their mum or dad leaves before breakfast who quietly carry part of the cost of this work too.
You're the reason any of this works. Thank you. 💙🙏

这个星期，其中一位护士跟我说，她的孩子看到排班后说：
“又是Alex医生啊？他怎么老是这么早开始做病例？”
她笑了，我也笑了。
但后来，我一直想着这句话。
当一台手术或检查进行得很顺利；当病人告诉我护士很贴心、团队很温暖、一切都安排得井井有条时, 那并不是运气。
那是因为有一群人，牺牲了自己的清晨、傍晚，甚至陪伴家人的时间，只为了让病人的照护能够顺利进行。
这篇文字，献给他们。
献给护士们、麻醉师、内窥镜部门团队、运送人员、清洁员工、助理们。
献给那些在天还没亮时就已经到岗，在最后一位病人安全离开后才结束工作的人。
也献给他们身后的家人，那些发现爸爸妈妈总是在早餐前就出门的孩子们。
其实，你们也默默承担了这份工作的代价。
正因为有你们，这一切才能顺利运转。
衷心感谢你们。💙🙏

03/06/2026

Three patients with severe acute pancreatitis admitted this week alone. It is one of the conditions I most wish people would take seriously sooner.
Gallstones, alcohol, and uncontrolled triglycerides are the main causes. The warning sign is severe upper tummy pain that radiates through to the back — usually after a fatty meal or heavy drinking — with vomiting that won't settle. That is not "gastric." That is an emergency.
The earlier you come in, the more we can do. Please share this — if one person recognises the pain and goes in early, this post will have done its job.

光是这一个星期,我就收了三位严重急性胰腺炎的病人入院。这是我最希望大家能早一点重视的疾病之一。
胆结石、过量饮酒,以及失控的三酸甘油脂,是三个最常见的原因。
要警惕的症状是:剧烈的上腹疼痛,从前面贯穿到背后 — 通常发生在吃了油腻食物或大量喝酒之后,还伴随止不住的呕吐。这不是「胃痛」,这是急症。
来得越早,我们能帮的就越多。请把这条分享出去 — 如果有一个人因此认出这种疼痛、及时来医院,这则贴文就值得了。

Address

Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur, 8 Jalan Bukit Pantai
Kuala Lumpur
59100

Opening Hours

Monday 13:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 08:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 08:00 - 17:00
Thursday 08:00 - 17:00
Friday 08:00 - 17:00
Saturday 08:00 - 12:00

Telephone

+60172838388

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