3D Assessment of Irreversible Electroporation Treatments in Vegetal Models

Abstract

Ablative techniques based on irreversible electroporation (IRE) have emerged as an effective cancer therapy. In these treatments electrical pulses are delivered in order to induce irrecoverable damage to the cell membranes, thus, causing cell death. An interesting feature of electroporation treatments is the capability to predict shape and extension of lesions by means of mathematical simulations. Those prediction methods have been refined thought in-vivo experimental observations. Aiming at minimization of animal experiments, vegetal models have been used to easily observe the IRE outcomes. However, these observations are limited at the surface of the tissue. Here we present an improved method able to observe the inner parts of the tissue and therefore evaluate in three-dimensions the results of IRE using potatoes as vegetal models. The technique consists in using a dye solution to enhance the IRE area in sliced potato tubers. After slice digitalization, the electroporated area is automatically identified and the resulting treated volume is calculated. In addition, a threedimensional reconstruction of both healthy tissue and IRE volume is generated. The proposed evaluation technique was used to assess different pulse protocols outcomes. Numerical simulations had been carried out to compare the numerical predictions to the experimental observations. The obtained results show a clear match between experimental and simulated volumes confirming the reliability of the proposed method.

Effect of pulsed electrical fields on the structural properties that affect french fry texture during processing

“…Enzymatic browning from polyphenol oxidase activity on the PEF treated tissues was used to visualize the effect of PEF along potato tubers. PEF electrode probes were inserted in the potato and the cell damage was visualized by the intensity of the browning, which was found to be not uniformly distributed, with the water core region being the darkest (Castellví, Banús, & Ivorra, 2015). Cell viability was measured on peeled and unpeeled potatoes using a tetrazolium salt staining, which showed uneven distribution of dead cells along the multilayers of potato tissues.…”

Anistropically varying conductivity in irreversible electroporation simulations

“…For all simulations, a volume was considered irreversibly electroporated if the magnitude of the electrical field was 184 V/cm or greater. This value was determined experimentally in [11] for the cases this work recreated for comparison.

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“…The simulations used for comparison will be based off the irreversible electroporation experiments and simulations performed by Castellvi et al [11]. This work will use their experimentally determined parameters to compare an isotropic formulation to an anisotropic formulation.…”

Electric field distribution study in inhomogeneous biological tissues

“…In this research, the effect of the presence of inhomogeneous area between the needles used to apply the electric field is studied by means of numerical simulations and experiments on phantoms. The phantoms are built using potato tissue that becomes dark if electroporated, and a tissue mimic material (TMM), the resistivity of which can be suitably designed . This technique of approaching materials with different electrical properties was used in order to simulate, in a laboratory phantom, the inhomogeneities encountered in real tissues .…”

“…The phantoms are built using potato tissue that becomes dark if electroporated, and a tissue mimic material (TMM), the resistivity of which can be suitably designed. [27][28][29][30][31] This technique of approaching materials with different electrical properties was used in order to simulate, in a laboratory phantom, the inhomogeneities encountered in real tissues. 26 For this purpose, a pair of needles, with a 2-cm gap, was used to apply the electric field.…”