Electrochemotherapy in treatment of tumours

Abstract

Aim: Electrochemotherapy is a local drug delivery approach aimed at treatment with palliative intent of cutaneous and subcutaneous tumour nodules of different histologies. Electrochemotherapy, via cell membrane permeabilising electric pulses, potentiates the cytotoxicity of nonpermeant or poorly permeant anticancer drugs with high intrinsic cytotoxicity, such as bleomycin or cisplatin, at the site of electric pulse application. Methods: An overview of preclinical and clinical studies is presented, and the treatment procedure is further critically evaluated. Results: In clinical studies electrochemotherapy has proved to be a highly efficient and safe approach for treating cutaneous and subcutaneous tumour nodules. The treatment response for various tumours (predominantly melanoma) was w75% complete and 10% partial response of the treated nodules. Conclusions: Electrochemotherapy is a new, clinically acknowledged method for the treatment of cutaneous and subcutaneous tumours. Its advantages are high effectiveness on tumours with different histologies, simple application, minimal side effects and the possibility of effective repetitive treatment.

On the Electroporation Thresholds of Lipid Bilayers: Molecular Dynamics Simulation Investigations

“…Electroporation is considered reversible if cells recover their initial state after the electric field is switched off; electroporation is considered irreversible if it leads to cell death. These two processes are used in electrochemotherapy (Sersa et al 2008), transdermal drug delivery (Denet et al 2004), gene therapy (Daud et al 2008;Breton et al 2012), water cleaning (Vernhes et al 2002), food processing (Toepfl et al 2007) and tissue ablation (Davalos et al 2005).…”

Cellular stress induced by photodynamic reaction with CoTPPS and MnTMPyPCl5 in combination with electroporation in human colon adenocarcinoma cell lines (LoVo and LoVoDX)

“…Electropores generated with electromagnetic fields provide an additional way of a drug transport. Chemotherapy assisted by EP is known as electrochemotherapy (ECT) (Sersa et al 2008;Escoffre and Rols 2012). Thus, ECT and PDT are low-invasive and targeted therapies.…”

Phase I trial of DNA-hsp65 immunotherapy for advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

“…4,5 Therefore, novel therapeutic strategies aiming at improving survival and quality of life are needed. Different treatment modalities are currently being tested in clinical trials, for example electrochemotherapy, 6 intra-arterial chemotherapy, 7 cytokine peritumoral injection, 8,9 vaccines 10 and gene therapy. 11 Immunotherapy-the concept of boosting the immune system to target and destroy cancer cells-has been a goal in cancer treatment for over 100 years.…”