Analogy between electrolytic ablation of tumors and electroporation based tumor treatments

G. MARSHALL

Portoroz

Congreso; 1st. World Congress on Electroporation and Pulsed Electric Fields in Biology, Medicine and Food & Environmental Technologies; 2015

University of Ljubljana and EU COST Action TD1104

In spite of the wide differing scales of the electric parameters involved, there is a close electrochemical analogy between electrolytic ablation (EA) of tumors and electroporation (EP) based tumor treatments, such as electrochemotherapy, irreversible electroporation or gene electrotransfer. This becomes evident if we imagine an EA treatment with a very short pulse similar to a one pulse of an EP based treatment. To a greater or lesser extent, both are affected by the underlying electrolytic process, a process that is a function of the applied Coulomb dosage.Exploiting this analogy and based in previous works [1, 4], we propose two models for describing the electric field distribution, thus the transmembrane potential (TMP), in EP based tumor treatments. One is a simple approximation in which the TMP is corrected to account for electrolysis through the Coulomb dosage; the other one is a more realistic approximation of the TMP that considers ion transport, tissue natural buffering, pore creation and evolution and thermal effects. It is expected that the models proposed would provide a more realistic prediction of the TMP in EP based tumor treatments.1. Maglietti F, Michinski S, Olaiz N, Castro M, Suarez C, et al. (2013). PLoS ONE 8(11): e80167. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.00801672. Olaiz N, Signori E, Maglietti F, Soba A, Suárez C, Turjanski P, Michinski S and Marshall G (2014). Bioelechem 105-111 3. C. Suarez, A. Soba, F. Maglietti1, N. Olaiz, G. Marshall, (2014) PLOS ONE DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0113413.4. M. Marino, N. Olaiz, E. Signori, F. Maglietti, C. Suárez, L. Colombo, P. Turjanski, S. Michinski1, E. Luján and G. Marshall, Tissue damage in vaccination protocols based on electroporation: pH fronts and tissue natural buffering, Poster presentation, PIVAC-14 Conference, 24 ? 26 September 2014.