Research Areas

Department of Anaesthesiology

What clinical interventions can effectively reduce pain?

How can pain signaling be regulated?

Does type of anaesthesia affect circulating cancer cells?

Why may the brain become inflamed after surgery?

Major Research Areas

Pain management:
Postoperative pain management: perioperative interventions to reduce acute and chronic postsurgical pain: the analgesic effects of propofol total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) and regional nerve blocks.

Epigenetics and pain: epigenetic mechanisms in neuropathic pain models.

Neuromodulation: the analgesic mechanism of spinal cord stimulation for the management of chronic neuropathic pain.

Pain and pro-inflammatory makers: the mechanism of propofol in postoperative and inflammatory pain models; inflammatory pain signaling pathways.

Pain signaling mechanisms: the use of transgenic mice to study pain signaling pathways in neuropathic and inflammatory pain models.

Opioids and chronic pain management: the clinical effectiveness of different opioids on the control of chronic non cancer and cancer pain.

Relationship between chronic pain and medical comorbidities: population-based pain study to delineate the association between chronic pain and cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Contact Person(s)

Professor C.W. Cheung
Tel: 2255 3303
Email: cheucw@hku.hk

Dr S.S.C. Wong
Tel: 2255 3303
Email: wongstan@hku.hk

Pharmacology of intravenous anaesthetic drugs:
Pharmacology of new intravenous anaesthetics (particularly propofol, remifentanil dexmedetomidine); patient-controlled and target-controlled infusion; opioid pre and post conditioning; pharmacokinetic variations in various disease states; dose response characteristics; acute pain management; fluid therapy.

Contact Person(s)

Professor M. Irwin
Tel: 2255 3303
Email: mgirwin@hku.hk

Post-operative neuroinflammation
Peri-operative neurocognitive disorders

Contact Person(s)

Dr G.T.C. Wong
Tel: 2255 3303
Email: gordon@hku.hk

Chairman of Departmental Research Postgraduate Committee

Dr G.T.C. Wong
Tel: 2255 3303
Email: gordon@hku.hk