Recent Advances in Electrochemotherapy

Abstract

Electrochemotherapy is gaining recognition as an effective local therapy that uses systemically or intratumorally injected bleomycin or cisplatin with electroporation as a delivery system that brings drugs into the cells to exert their cytotoxic effects. Preclinical work is still ongoing, testing new drugs, seeking the best treatment combination with other treatment modalities, and exploring new sets of pulses for effective tissue electroporation. The applications of electrochemotherapy are being fully exploited in veterinary oncology, where electrochemotherapy, because of its simple execution, has a relatively good cost-benefit ratio and is used in the treatment of cutaneous tumors. In human oncology, electrochemotherapy is fully recognized as a local therapy for cutaneous tumors and metastases. Its effectiveness is being explored in combination with immunomodulatory drugs. However, the development of electrochemotherapy is directed into the treatment of deepseated tumors with a percutaneous approach. Because of the vast number of reports, this review discusses the articles published in the past 5 years.

Comparison of two different doses of bleomycin in electrochemotherapy protocols for feline cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma nonsegregated from ultraviolet light exposure

“…ECT uses either bleomycin or cisplatin (both lipophobic agents), and its efficacy has been shown in different types of tumors with different outcomes 12 . Bleomycin has been considered the cornerstone drug for ECT since its uptake is facilitated after permeabilization of the cell membrane by electric pulses, resulting in cytotoxicity improvement by 700-fold 11 .…”

Electroporation as the Immunotherapy Strategy for Cancer in Veterinary Medicine: State of the Art in Latin America

“…The situation in Latin America is quite the opposite. While veterinary electroporation-based treatments are steadily growing [ 45 , 46 ], in human medicine, they are barely starting as will be described later. The first human application of electroporation-based treatments is an ongoing clinical trial that uses GET for treating cervix cancer [ 47 ], and ECT is performed in few selected centers as a standard of care only in Argentina.…”

A Retrospective Multicentric Study of Electrochemotherapy in the Treatment of Feline Nasal Planum Squamous Cell Carcinoma

“…This paper investigates electrochemotherapy (ECT), which was first described in 1991 and has shown encouraging results in veterinary oncology [ 22 , 23 ]. This treatment combines the use of reversible electroporation (short high-voltage electric pulses) with cytotoxic drugs [ 9 , 24 ].…”

“…These two drugs are hydrophilic and do not easily penetrate the cell membrane; however, upon entering the cells, they are highly cytotoxic. The application of permeabilizing electric impulses leads to an increase in the uptake of the normally non-permeable or poorly permeable cytotoxic drugs [ 22 , 24 ].…”