Meeting Report: Taiwan Association of Interventional and Therapeutic Ultrasound (TAITU) 2022

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Key Points

  • TAITU’s Annual Academic Conference was held on December 17, 2022, at National Taiwan University (NTU) School of Medicine.
  • The Foundation’s Asia Ambassador, Dong-Guk Paeng, PhD, attended the meeting and presented a talk.
  • We thank Dr. Paeng for this meeting summary.

TAITU’s Annual Academic Conference was held on December 17, 2022, at National Taiwan University School of Medicine. Dong-Guk Paeng, PhD, the Foundation’s Asia Ambassador, attended the meeting and presented a talk. After the opening remarks, the day was divided into four sessions.

Read on for Dr. Paeng’s dispatch from TAITU:

The first session included presentations from two Taiwanese scholars. Dr. Wei Chieh Chang shared his experience from “MRgFUS in the treatment of Parkinson Disease- 3 Years Experience” at Show Chwan Memorial Hospital. He spoke about treatments for essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease, and other conditions. After his talk, I heard that he is also interested in treating addictions, such as alcoholism. The second talk in this session was about the fast removal of subcutaneous fat using a combined system of focused ultrasound and electrical stimulation (not an image-guided system).

After a five-minute coffee break, we heard two virtual talks from Japanese scholars. Prof. Kazuaki Negishi from the University of Sydney talked about sonothrombolysis using a diagnostic ultrasound system and microbubbles, including pilot data from the REDUCE clinical trial. The second online talk was about cavitation-enhanced high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) heating with ultrasound guidance. During the ultrasound signals within the HIFU beam, the team removed the background noise simultaneously so the ultrasound image could be seen along with the HIFU beam with minimal interaction while treating pancreatic cancers. This talk was given by the founder of SONIRE Therapeutics, a venture company.

After another short coffee break, two Korean scholars, Prof. Won Seok Chang at Yonsei Severance and Prof. Eun-Joo Park at Seoul National University Hospital, gave talks. Prof. Chang described his preclinical research using focused ultrasound blood-brain barrier (BBB) modulation for neurodegenerative diseases, and Prof. Park provided an overview of the immune response induced by focused ultrasound.

Without a break, the fourth session started with new moderators. I gave a talk about the Kranion modeling software and introduced the Foundation’s programs. The last talk, which was given by Prof. Jaw-Lin Wang, was about piezoelectric stimulation as a therapeutic approach: mechanism and pitfalls.

After the general assembly, I was invited to lunch with the core committee of TAITU. The group discussed the future of TAITU and hosting the International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound meeting in 2024. After lunch, Prof. Hao-Li Liu gave a short tour of his new lab at NTU. There are already five Insightec systems installed in Taiwan, where having a focused ultrasound treatment system is a symbol of being a top hospital.

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