CUHK Medicine shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Chance Encounters Leading to Paradigm Shift in Thoracic Surgery
Professor Calvin Ng, Professor of the Department of Surgery at CU Medicine was recently awarded the “Environmental Foundation Professor of Thoracic Surgery” in recognition of his significant achievements in pioneering diagnostic and treatment modalities for managing increasingly complex lung malignancies. Professor Ng shared the chance encounters which have led him towards advancing minimally invasive techniques and curing patients with thoracic diseases and malignancies.
After completing his studies in UK, he decided to return to Hong Kong, embarking on his academic journey at CU Medicine as a research assistant. Along his journey, he was fortunate to meet two life-long mentors: Professor Anthony Yim, a pioneer of minimally invasive cardiothoracic surgery in Asia, and also the internationally renowned Professor Song Wan. They not only passed on medical knowledge but also played pivotal roles in his life by being important role models for integrity and medical professionalism.
Under Professor Yim’s leadership, Professor Ng was trained in Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS). He witnessed how minimally invasive surgery offers advantages such as smaller wounds, faster surgical recovery and improved clinical outcomes for his patients. In 2012, he pioneered and successfully performed Hong Kong’s first uniportal (single port) VATS lobectomy, further reducing surgical access trauma for thoracic surgical patients. He has been a leader in this field with extensive publications, and has since continued to organise conferences and conducted workshops to promote minimally invasive thoracic surgery across Asia providing training for thousands of thoracic surgeons.
With earlier detection and rising cases of early and multifocal lung cancers, conventional surgery faces challenges in managing these small pulmonary lesions. To address some of these challenges, Professor Ng helped introduce Electromagnetic Navigation Bronchoscopy (ENB) into Hong Kong and performed world’s first hybrid operating room image-guided uniportal surgery in 2015, allowing diagnosis and surgical localization of even subcentimeter lesions. His interests in image-guided surgery have had significant impact in changing the global landscape of lung surgery.
More recently, identifying the need for even less invasive approaches to treating lung tumours, Professor Ng pioneered Asia-Pacific’s first noninvasive bronchoscopic microwave ablation (BMA) procedure in the hybrid operating room, marking a breakthrough in small, multiple and recurrent lung tumour management. In 2021, he introduced roboticassisted bronchoscopy (RAB) into Hong Kong, and subsequently in 2022 performed world’s first RAB microwave ablation for treatment of lung tumours. Prof Ng has revolutionized lung cancer diagnosis and treatment precision and personalization, offering patients novel, noninvasive therapeutic options.”
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