Dr. Chong Kian Tai

Biography

Dr. Chong Kian Tai (张建泰医生) is a certified Urologist who manages both General Urology and complex Urologic Cancers. He is a Specialist Urology Surgeon who is skilled in working with different treatment choices for optimal outcome. Treatments he is proficient in include traditional open surgery, advanced keyhole laparoscopic and endoscopic surgery, as well as the modern da Vinci Robotic Surgical Systems.

Dr. Chong completed his full-time advanced Clinical Urologic-Oncology Fellowship at the prestigious Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, U.S. in 2009. His key professional expertise includes the diagnosis, treatment and management of prostate, kidney, bladder, testis and penile cancers.

For Urologic Cancers, Dr. Chong focuses on the following:

• MRI ultrasound fusion prostate biopsy – To detect prostate cancer accurately with better precision after an MRI prostate scan.
   
• Bladder cystoscopy with narrow-band imaging (NBI) – To detect small bladder cancer that are more difficult to diagnose using ordinary white-light cystoscopy.
   
• da Vinci robotic partial nephrectomy – To remove small kidney tumours and save remaining unaffected kidney. This prevents kidney failure by preserving more kidney function.

• da Vinci robotic radical prostatectomy – with removal of pelvic lymph nodes – to treat men with stage 2 and stage 3 prostate cancer and locally-advanced prostate cancer.
   

For General Urology, Dr. Chong focuses on the following:

1. Enlarged prostate, also known as BPH (benign prostate hyperplasia)
– New procedures that are less invasive than traditional resection surgery. Examples include the UroLift, Rezum and Prolieve procedures.

2. Retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS)
– Uses flexible ureteroscope to treat small kidney stones by laser stone surgery. There is no cutting and no surgical scars on the skin.
 

Prior to private practice, Dr. Chong was the Consultant, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Co-Director of Urologic Oncology and Director of Research in the Department of Urology at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). He also managed the Urology Cancer clinical databases and tissue repository. In the Singapore Cancer Society, he was an Advisory Panel member to improve prostate cancer awareness and survivorship.

Dr. Chong is a dynamic healthcare innovator, researcher and educator. He started molecular research in Urologic-Oncology on prostate cancer immunology at Seattle, Washington, U.S., which was funded by Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) and Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). While in Singapore, he was a founding member of the Singapore Urological Cancer Consortium and had been in-charge of several teams in prostate, kidney, bladder and testis cancer research. These projects included precision medicine, biomolecular, nanoparticle, bioimaging and novel biomedical device studies.

To improve holistic care for urological cancer patients in TTSH, Dr. Chong was Chairman for the Urology Cancer Multidisciplinary Tumour Board, Chairman for Urology Cancer Support Programme, Chairman for Advanced Care Planning Team and Chairman for TTSH Prostate Cancer Support Group involving cancer patients and their family.

Dr. Chong's specialty interests are bladder cystoscopy and narrow-band imaging, da vinci robotic partial nephrectomy, da vinci robotic radical prostatectomy, MRI ultrasound fusion prostate bipsy and retrograde intrarenal surgery.