I recently had the opportunity to speaking as part of a lecture series on “Current and Future of MSK embolisation at the APSCVIR congress (Asia Pacific Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology).
Unfortunately for me I was zooming in rather than attending in person in Seoul Korea! The series was moderated by Yuji Okuno from Japan who is the world authority on MSK embolisation and really brought the field into being 10 years ago through his successful clinic in Japan as well as Dr Sang Woo Park who leads the way in Korea. It’s really an honour just to be in the same rooms as these thought leaders and I must admit it made me more than a little nervous !
My topic was on the well established role of genicular (knee) artery embolisaiton for treatment of hemarthrosis (bleeding into the knee). While this is a good foundation which we know works very well I am much more excited about the bright future for knee embolisation as a minimally invasive treatment for arthritis, covered by Siddarth Padia from UCLA as well as Dr Okuno’s topic on other emerging applicaitons – which include frozen shoulder and chronic tendonopathies.
I really feel that MSK embolisation therapy will feel a large need for something between NSAIDs/cortisone and surgery as a minimally invasive but longer term strategy to reduce inflammation and pain.
