Dr Germaine Xu

Dr Germaine Xu is a general surgeon subspecializing in oncoplastic breast surgery. She did her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore in 2003 and subsequently obtained her Masters of Medicine (Surgery). She entered advanced general surgical training and obtained her fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2014. Since then, she has spent one year on a Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) Human Manpower Development Program (HMDP) fellowship to the prestigious Nottingham Breast Unit under Dr Douglas MacMillan and Dr Tuabin Rasheed to learn Oncoplastic Breast Surgery. In addition, she has spent time at the Edinburgh Breast Unit under Professor Mike Dixon, the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) and the Paris Breast Centre with Dr Krishnan Clough. Dr Xu subsequently worked as a Breast Oncoplastic and General Surgical Consultant in Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, and built up the Breast Oncoplastic Unit. She is currently a Consultant Breast Oncoplastic Surgeon in private practise. Dr Xu sees a wide variety of breast cases. They include benign breast diseases such as fibroadenomas, phylloides tumour, nipple discharge, infections of the breasts, premalignant breast diseases, as well as breast cancers. She is well-versed in breast cancer surgeries like lumpectomy (including wire guided or radio-occult localisation of lesion), mastectomies (simple, skin or nipple sparing mastectomies), single or dual technique sentinel node biopsy (or even sentimag sentinel node biopsy), axillary clearances, a variety of reconstructive options for partial or total breast excision such as lateral intercostal artery perforator (LICAP) flaps or anterior intercostal artery perforator flap, normal or extended latissimus dorsi flaps, implant reconstruction and lipofilling. Dr Xu is the first surgeon in Singapore to perform the laparoscopic harvested omental flap for partial breast reconstruction in 2017 for two patients. For patients at very high risk of breast cancer (eg BRCA 1/ 2 or other mutation carriers), Dr Xu also performs prophylactic mastectomies for women who so wish to reduce their risks. In addition, she also performs breast reductions for symptomatic macromastia (big and heavy breasts). Dr Xu also treats male breast cancers and gynaecomastia (benign enlarged the male breast). Dr Xu is a trained general surgeon. In addition to open surgery, she performs laparoscopic surgeries such as laparoscopic appendectomies, laparoscopic cholecystectomies for both elective and emergency cases, as well as laparoscopic ventral (abdominal wall) and inguinal hernia repairs and laparoscopic staging procedures. She performs both elective and emergency endoscopic procedures (gastroscopy and colonoscopy). Dr Xu was previously a clinical tutor with both the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS) and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (NTU). She was an examiner for the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and also trained residents as part of the General Surgical Residency Faculty under National Healthcare Group. Out of work, Dr Germaine Xu gives talks regularly for Breast Cancer Foundation (Singapore) regularly to raise awareness of the disease. In addition, she is a volunteer for medical missions to overseas countries (such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Maldives) as well as a tutor for under-privileged children in Singapore.