Practitioner Profile

• Thoracic, Head and Neck Oncology
• Urologic Oncology
• Malignant Hematology including Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas
• Gastrointestinal Oncology including hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer).

Before joining OncoCare Cancer Centre at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Singapore, Dr Akhil Chopra was a Senior Consultant in Medical Oncology at Johns Hopkins Singapore, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Adjunct Associate Professor at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.

Dr Chopra completed his medical school training from Delhi University, India in 2001. He is American Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology. He completed his fellowship training in Hematology and Medical Oncology from Hahnemann University Hospital/Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, USA.

As a result of his comprehensive training in the USA in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology and his most professional appointment as a Senior Consultant in Johns Hopkins Singapore and Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Dr Chopra is vastly experienced in treating multiple cancer types including lung cancer, breast cancer, cancers of stomach, colon, rectum, liver, prostate, kidney, testicular and the bladder, gynaecological cancers such as ovarian and uterine/cervical cancers; as well as lymphomas and chronic leukaemia’s/multiple myeloma. He also has experience in treating more rare cancers like sarcoma and neuroendocrine tumors. However, Dr Chopra does not manage patients suffering from acute leukaemias or perform bone marrow transplants and would refer these patients to his colleagues as appropriate.

As a senior specialist in cancer medicine, he has a wide experience managing cancer patients from various countries such as India, United Arab Emirates and other middle-eastern countries, USA, European countries as well as Asian nations including Bangladesh, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia with help of interpreters.

During his time at his previous institution, Dr Chopra was actively involved as principal and co-investigator in several industry sponsored as well as investigator-initiated clinical trials in different cancer types. Dr Chopra has a special interest in use of immunotherapy to treat cancers and has been a principal investigator for several clinical trials using immunotherapy agents in multiple tumour types. Dr Chopra is one of the authors in a clinical trial involving multiple regional cancer centres in liver cancer (hepatocellular cancer). This trial published in the reputable journal, Lancet, involves the early use of nivolumab, a programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor, in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with or without chronic viral hepatitis (CheckMate 040 trial). He is also a co-author in an important publication in Journal of Clinical Oncology examining the role of nivolumab in advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a common cancer in south-east Asia. He has several other publications covering his research work in the treatment of lung, prostate and kidney cancer.

Besides his clinical and research work, he has been involved in teaching medicals students from the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine as well as medical residents and students from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore in USA. Dr Chopra was the Program Director for the National Health Care Group Medical Oncology training program from its inception in 2012 till April 2017. His work as a clinician and researcher has been covered by national media including the Straits Times and Channel News Asia.

Dr. Chopra is also a Visiting Consultant at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. 

Fellowship Training at Hahnemann University Hospital/Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, USA