[2025 Taiwan Pain Medicine Society (TPS) Annual Meeting] [2025 Peripheral Vascular Medicine Society (TSIR) Annual Meeting] [Principles of Simplified Transarterial Microembolization (TAME)] [Academic Exchange] 2025-4-19/20

Author: Bow Wang, M.D.

Thanks to the Taiwan Pain Medicine Society (TPS) and Dr. Liang Geng-wei for the invitation, which gave me the opportunity to co-host the "Simplified Transarterial Microembolization (TAME), sTAME" workshop with Dr. Liang Geng-wei and Dr. Huang Yu-han. I was also very happy to have the opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas with the pain management colleagues who participated in the workshop.

Besides hands-on learning, Bow Wang, M.D. also had an advanced discussion with Dr. Wu Shu-yi, the director of Youli Clinic, on the principles of embolization analgesia. Dr. Chen Zhen-yin, the head of the Pain Management Department at Chi Mei Hospital, also made a special trip during the annual meeting to discuss possible reasons for patients who did not respond to embolization analgesia, including low vitamin levels, and informed Bow Wang, M.D. about the subsequent situations of patients referred by Bow Wang, M.D..

The simplified Transarterial Microembolization (TAME), sTAME, is internationally known as Donchu treatment or the Okuno method. This utilizes the difference between transient embolic agents, which are metabolized and recanalized in normal tissue blood vessels, and abnormal blood vessels in inflamed tissues, which undergo permanent embolization due to incomplete endothelial cell function. By using ultrasound to guide the drug delivery into the large blood vessels at the front end, the drug flows spontaneously to the abnormal microvessels of the target inflamed joint, causing embolization without the side effect of causing necrosis of normal tissue.