Doctors

I started my career as an interventional radiologist and from that experience through it, I had a clinical question "Why can a blood vessel with disturbed structure be formed in cancer or inflammation?" And to solve it, I focused on pathological angiogenesis when I was engaged in basic research of vascular science that I did during my graduated student researcher. From this work we found genes involved in the pathogenesis of pathological angiogenesis and I reported the results of the study to Nature Medicine in 2012 as a first author. Based on these experiences, from the viewpoint that reduction of abnormal diseased blood vessels leads to improvement of chronic inflammatory diseases, I have developed a treatment using embolization technique applying to chronic musculoskeletal disorders, such as knee osteoarthritis and frozen shoulder and reported its safety and usefulness in the world for the first time by conducting clinical researches. At present, this procedure is beginning to be confirmed for safety and usefulness in third parties in other countries.

I used to play rugby at university and still love playing sports. While I was researching in the United States, a friend of mine invited me to try a triathlon. Since then, I have been hooked on triathlon and now I am training hard to participate in domestic and international tournaments at least 3 times a year. Through our treatments, I have met many patients who gave up playing their favorite sports such as golf, tennis, or swimming due to pain. I know how hard it is to give up playing favorite sports. When I see those patients, who improved pain through our treatments and become energetic and go back to their favorite sports, I am very happy for them and glad that we could help. As a director of Kobe Sannomiya branch, I will make sincere efforts to spread this new treatment to people in the Kansai region, west part of Japan, who are suffering from pain.

As a cardiologist, I have worked in the field of atherosclerotic diseases, especially coronary intervention for coronary artery diseases such as myocardial infarction and angina pectoris. During this time, I happened to come across an innovative treatment for chronic pain, called transcatheter arterial microembolization. When I tried this treatment to a patient who was actually suffering from pain, the result of the treatment was remarkable. I was even more shocked than the patient himself. I love sports myself and I still train hard. I often realize that pain is not only limits to exercise, but also diminishes the quality of life. We will make every effort to bring this innovative treatment to those suffering from pain, which there was no solution before.

I have been working at Okuno Clinic. since 2018, and it is amazing to see the recovery of our patients after treatments. The words from our patients such as “My shoulder is stress free!”, “I can play golf now!” encourage me and I feel rewarding as a doctor. 

In modern times, it is said that people live in the age of 100 years and many people are enjoying sports. I also played rugby in high school and college, and still love to do some exercise, but it is impossible to enjoy my life if I have a pain. We will make every effort to accurately assess your current situation and guide you to the appropriate treatment based on your symptoms, physical finding, and diagnostic imaging such as ultrasound and MRI.