Electrical stimulation towards melanoma therapy via liquid metal printed electronics on skin

Abstract

Background We proposed a method of using electrical stimulation for treatment of malignant melanoma through directly spray-printing liquid metal on skin as soft electrodes to deliver low intensity, intermediate frequency electric fields. Methods With patterned conductive liquid metal components on mice skin and under assistance of a signal generator, a sine wave electrical power with voltage of 5 V and 300 kHz could be administrated on treating malignant melanoma tumor. Findings The experiments demonstrated that tumor volume was significantly reduced compared with that of the control group. Under the designed parameters (signal: sine wave, signal amplitude Vpp: 5 V and Vpp: 4 V, frequency: 300 kHz) of Tumor treating fields (TTFields) with the sprayed liquid metal electrode, four mice tumor groups became diminishing after 1 week of treatment. The only device-related side effect as seen was a mild to moderate contact dermatitis underneath the field delivering electrodes. The SEM images and pathological analysis demonstrated the targeted treating behavior of the malignant melanoma tumor. Further, thermal infrared imaging experiments indicated that there occur no evident heating effects in the course of treatment. Besides, the liquid metal is easy to remove through medical alcohol. Conclusions Tumor treating fields through liquid metal electrode could offer a safe, straightforward and effective treatment modality which evidently slows down tumor growth in vivo. These promising results also raised the possibility of applying spray-printing TTFields as an easy going physical way for future cancer therapy.

Recent use of medical infrared thermography in skin neoplasms

“…Eryfotona. IRT also helped in the temperature monitoring of malignant melanoma, during electrical stimulation therapy via liquid metal printed electronics on mice skin, as seen in, showing no alterations, in the thermal pattern of the lesion site, during this step.…”

“…Apart from diagnosis, medical thermography has demonstrated its usefulness on the patient follow‐up, through the evaluation of skin lesions, such as AK and melanoma, after treatment. Laino et al used active telethermography to evaluate the reduction in the hyperthermic halo of AK, after its removal and lesion site treatment with Eryfotona.…”

“…Apart from diagnosis, medical thermography has demonstrated its usefulness on the patient follow-up, through the evaluation of skin lesions, such as AK 19 and melanoma, 20…”

Advances in the Development of Liquid Metal-Based Printed Electronic Inks

“…Figure 7D presents a picture of two dragons playing with a pearl pattern printed on black paper substrate through screen printing approach. Liquid metal spray printing is becoming ripe gradually and is used for fabricating skin electronics (Guo et al, 2014;Li et al, 2016;Gui et al, 2017). Tabatabai et al (2013) investigated a microcontact printing technique with which a liquid-phase circuit could be patterned on the substrate by using a microcontact printer.…”

Preparations, Characteristics and Applications of the Functional Liquid Metal Materials

“…As shown in Figure 15c, giving a small piece of aluminum, the liquid metal could continuously move for more than 1 h without any help of external energy. Regardless of the method, the [123] Copyright 2016, Li et al c) Schematic illustration of the optical control of liquid mtal nanocapsules, and the results of photodynamic and hyperthermia destruction of tumors in vivo. Regardless of the method, the [123] Copyright 2016, Li et al c) Schematic illustration of the optical control of liquid mtal nanocapsules, and the results of photodynamic and hyperthermia destruction of tumors in vivo.…”