Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
Menu
Assoc Prof John Yuen Shyi Peng

Assoc Prof Yuen Shyi Peng, John

​MBBS (Melb), MMed (Surg) (S'pore), MRCS (Edin), FAMS (Urology), DPhil (Oxon)

Head & Senior Consultant

Singapore General Hospital

Specialty: Urology, Surgery & Surgical Oncology

Sub-specialties: Minimally Invasive Surgery, Uro-Oncology

Conditions Treated by this Doctor:
Adrenal Gland Cancer, Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), Bladder Cancer, Kidney Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Testicular Cancer, Urinary Stone Disease, Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).

Clinical Appointments

  • Head & Senior Consultant Urology Singapore General HospitalSingapore General Hospital
  • Senior Consultant Division of Surgery & Surgical Oncology National Cancer Centre SingaporeNational Cancer Centre Singapore

Academic Appointments

  • NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
  • Duke-NUS Medical School

Profile

​Associate Professor John SP Yuen, currently Head and Senior Consultant, Department of Urology, studied Medicine at the University of Melbourne on an Australian Government scholarship and graduated with the Bachelor of Medicine; Bachelor of Surgery (M.B; BS) degree in 1996. He underwent advanced urological training in Singapore where he obtained his Master Degree in Medicine (Surgery) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh in 2000. He was admitted as a Fellow of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore and Member, Chapter of Urologist of the College of Surgeons, Singapore in 2004. 

Dr Yuen is a Senior Consultant Urological Surgeon in the Department of Urology, Singapore General Hospital (SGH) with a special clinical interest in robotic and laparoscopic surgery to treat urological cancers (prostate, kidney, bladder, testicular and penile cancers). He underwent robotic and laparoscopic training at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, New York, USA and the University of Strasbourg, France where he obtained a diploma in laparoscopic surgery. He subspecialises in uro-oncology and was the Director of Uro-oncology (2013-2016) in SGH. His practice includes treating other general urological conditions including benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH or prostatism), urinary stone disease and urinary tract infections. 

In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious International Fellowship by the Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore and funding by the SingHealth Talent Development Funds to pursue a PhD degree at the University of Oxford. His research work, supervised by Professor Val Macaulay, focused on finding new molecular targets to treat patients with advanced kidney cancers. During his time in Oxford, his surgical mentors was Dr Mark Sullivan who specialises in kidney cancer surgery. He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Oxford - DPhil (Oxon) – in 2007. Thereafter, he returned to SGH where he has been working as a senior consultant uro-oncological surgeon. He is one of the principal inventors of the patented robotic prostate biopsy device Mona Lisa® (Biobot Surgical, Singapore), which is currently the state-of-the-art transperineal multi-parametric MRI-targeted prostate biopsy technique for early prostate cancer detection. He received international and regional recognition in the fields of early prostate cancer diagnosis and minimally-invasive surgical techniques (da Vinci robotic and laparoscopic surgery) for treating urological cancers, and research in advanced kidney cancers. He pioneered advanced robotic surgical techniques such as performing robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RARP) totally outside the abdominal cavity that allows quick recovery such that patients only requires a short overnight-stay in hospital (ambulatory robotic prostatectomy with extended recovery).

His contributions in these advanced robotic surgical techniques had been published in international peer-reviewed journals (publication reference no. 3, 7, 12, 13, 17). He had also been invited to conduct workshops and lectures in Europe (European Association of Urology – EAU Congress 2015, Madrid), China, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar and Singapore. Beside clinical work, he took up administrative duties and serves in various hospital committees. In 2014, he completed the Healthcare Emerging Leadership Program (ELP) conducted by the Healthcare Leadership College, MOH Holdings, Singapore. He was an active member of the Chapter of Urologists, Academy of Medicine, Singapore; and Singapore Urological Association (SUA) where he served as an executive committee member (2009-2010). He was the Organising Chairman for Urofair (2018); and the second Asia-Pacific Preceptorship Program in Prostate Cancer (2011). He was an organising committee and scientific committee member respectively for the 19th Asian Congress of Surgery/1st SingHealth Surgical Congress (2013), and the Urological Associations of Asia (UAA) Congress (2016), in Singapore.

Dr Yuen continues to be actively involved in urological translational research to develop new and more effective treatments for patients with urological cancers. He leads a research group in the Department of Urology, focusing on novel molecular treatments for kidney cancer and diagnostic tests for early detection of prostate cancer. In addition, he collaborates extensively with other established researchers in this field at the NUS, Duke-NUS, National Cancer Centre, the Genome Institute of Singapore at Biopolis, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, and the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford. He is currently a Principal Investigator in kidney cancer research funded by research grants from the Millennium Research Fund, SingHealth; the National Kidney Foundation and the National Medical Research Council, Singapore. His research findings were published in international peer-review journals, including Oncogene, Genome Medicine, Clinical Cancer Research, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, British Journal of Cancer, Journal of Urology and International Journal of Urology, among others. Some of his pioneered robotic, laparoscopic and endoscopic surgical techniques have been published in the Urology Video Journal and Videourology (Journal of Endourology).

Dr Yuen is also actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. He supervises PhD- and Master-degree candidatures at the NUS. He holds teaching appointments with the Yong Loo Lin (YLL) School of Medicine NUS, and the Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore (Clinical Associate Professor). He is also an examiner for the Final MBBS examination for the NUS YLL School of Medicine and was the Chairman of the National Urology Exit Examination Committee (2014 - 2015).

Education

  • MBBS (Melb)
  • MMed (Surg) (S'pore)
  • MRCS (Edin)
  • FAMS (Urology)
  • DPhil (Oxon)

Professional Appointments and Committee Memberships

Awards

Research Interests

Publications

  1. ​Anti-survivin effect of the small molecule inhibitor YM155 in RCC cells is mediated by time-dependent inhibition of the NF-κB pathway          
    Sim MY, Yuen JSP & Go ML
    Scientific Reports Vol 8, Article number: 10289 (Jul 2018)
  2. The mechanistic effects of the dioxonaphthoimidazolium analog YM155 in renal cell carcinoma cell cycling and apoptosis
    Sim MY, Go ML, Yuen JSP
    Life Sci Jun 2018; 203: 282-290
  3. Kenneth Chen, Yang XY, Karine Sim, Mahmood B. Mohammad, Tay KJ, Allen Sim, John SP Yuen
    Total Extra-peritoneal (TEP) Robotic-assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy – Step-by-step Approach
    Journal of Endourology: Videourology Published Online 27 Mar 2019; 33 (2)
  4. Kenneth Chen, Alvin Lee, Huang HH, Tay KJ, Allen Sim, Lee LS, C Cheng, Ng LG, Henry Ho, John SP Yuen
    Evolving trends in the surgical management of renal masses over the past two decades: A contemporary picture from a large prospectively-maintained database
    International Journal of Urology Feb 2019, https://doi.org/10.1111/iju.13909
  5. Du JZ, Tze K. Ng, K Chen, Allen S.P. Sim, Foo KT, John S.P. Yuen                  
    Transurethral Enucleation and Resection of Prostate Made Easy
    Journal Endourology: Videourology, Jun 2019, https://doi.org/10.1089/vid.2019.0002
  6. Min Thura, Abdul Qader Al-Aidaroos, Abhishek Gupta, Cheng Ean Chee, Soo Chin Lee, Kam Man Hui, Jie Li, Yeoh Khay Guan, Wei Peng Yong, Jimmy So, Wee Joo Chng, Chin Hin Ng, Jianbiao Zhou, Ling Zhi Wang, John Shyi Peng Yuen, Henry Sun Sien Ho, Sim Mei Yi, Edmund Chiong, Su Pin Choo, Joanne Ngeow, Matthew Chau Hsien Ng, Clarinda Chua, Eugene Shen Ann Yeo, Iain Bee Huat Tan, Joel Xuan En Sng, Nicholas Yan Zhi Tan, Jean Paul Thiery, Boon Cher Goh & Qi Zeng
    PRL3-zumab as an immunotherapy to inhibit tumors expressing PRL3 oncoprotein
    Nature Comunications (June 2019) 10:2484  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10127-x
  7. Alvin Low, Ng TK, John Yuen
    Sandwiched Posterior-Anterior Reconstructed Tissue-glued Anastomosis (SPARTAN) in    RARP: A Consistently Reproducible Urethro-vesical Anastomosis for Early Catheter Removal and Continence Recovery
    Urology Video Journal November 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urolvj.2019.100019
  8. Alvin Lee, Lee HJ, Huang HH, Tay KJ, Lee LS, A Sim,  H Ho, John Yuen, Kenneth Chen
    Prognostic Significance Of Inflammation-Associated Blood Cell Markers In Non-Metastatic
    Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma
    Clinical Genitourinary Cancer (2020), doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clgc.2019.11.013  (Published online Dec 4 2019)
  9. Jonathan Teo, Lee Han Jie, John Yuen
    Perioperative Anticoagulation and Open Distal Corpora Cavernosa Shunt in the Management of a Stuttering case of Idiopathic Persistent Childhood Ischaemic Priaprism
    Asian Journal of Urology Dec 2019, https:doi.org/10.1016/j.ajur.2019.12.010
  10. Yang Xin Yan, Alvin Lee, Law Yan Mee, Allen Sim, Tay KJ, Weber Lau, Henry Ho, John Yuen, Kenneth Chen
    Stereotactic robot-assisted transperineal prostate biopsy under local anaesthesia and sedation: moving robotic biopsy from operating theatre to clinic
    Journal of Robotic Surgery, Feb 2020
  11. Yu Guang Tan, Leonard JW Pang, Farhan Khalid , Randy JY Poon, Hong Hong Huang, Kenneth Chen, Kae Jack Tay , Weber Lau Kam On, Christopher Cheng, Henry Ho, John Yuen Shyi Peng
    Local and Systemic Morbidities of de novo Metastatic Prostate Cancer in Singapore: Insight from 685 Consecutive Patients from a Large Prospective Uro-oncology Registry
    BMJ Open, Jan 2020; 10:e034331.doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2019-034331
  12. Yu Guang Tan, Ng TK, John Yuen
    Endoscopic-assisted transvesical laparoscopy (EtLap): A new paradigm in minimally-invasive bladder surgery
    Journal of Endourology: Videourology. 2020, DOI: 10.1089/vid.2019.0100.
  13. Jin Yong, Zhi Wlaw, Xin Yyang, Tze KNg, John SP Yuen
    Robotic-assisted laparoscopic partial cystectomies (RAPC) for urachal diseases: Intuitive surgery for total umbilical tract excision and umbilectomy
    Urology Video Journal, Volume 7, September 2020, 100039, available online 13 May 2020
  14. Yu Guang Tan, Randy JY Poon, Leonard JW Pang,  Andre Villanuevab , Hong Hong Huang , Kenneth Chen,  Tze Kiat Ng,  Kae Jack Tay, Henry SS Ho, John SP Yuen
    Comparative study of surgical orchidectomy and medical castration in treatment efficacy, adverse effects and cost based on a large prospective metastatic prostate cancer registry
    Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations, Available online 29 May 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urolonc.2020.05.005
  15. Lee AY, Yang XY, Lee HJ, Law YM, Hong HH, Weber KO Lau, Lee LS, Henry SS Ho, Tay KJ, Cheng CW, John SP Yuen, Chen K.
    Multiparametric MRI-Ultrasound Software Fusion Prostate Biopsy - Initial Results Using A Stereotactic Robotic Assisted Transperineal Prostate Biopsy Platform Comparing Systematic Versus Targeted Biopsy.
    BJU Int. 2020 May 21, doi:10.1111/bju.15118
  16. E.J. Lim, K. Chen, T.K. Ng, K.J. Tay, H.S.S. Ho, J.S.P. Yuen
    Total extra-peritoneal (TEP) access for robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RARP) in patients with prior major abdominal surgeries: A step-by-step approach, Urology Video Journal, 2020, 100056.
  17. Low, Wei Xiang Alvin; Chen, Kenneth; Tan , Yu Guang ; Ng, Tze Kiat; Yuen, John SP  
    Ambulatory Robotic-assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy (RARP) with Extended Recovery by Total Extra-peritoneal (TEP) Approach.
    International Journal of Urology. In press.

Research Trials