Electroporation-Based Therapies for Cancer
From Basics to Clinical Applications
Woodhead Publishing Series in Biomedicine Series

Electroporation-Based Therapies for Cancer reviews electroporation-based clinical studies in hospitals for various cancer treatments, including melanomas, head and neck cancers, chest wall breast carcinomas, and colorectal cancers, as well as research studies in the lab using cell lines, primary cells, and animals.

Cancer kills about one American per minute, amounting to over 500,000 deaths in the United States and millions, worldwide, each year. There is a critical need for safe, effective, and affordable alternative treatment modalities, especially for inoperable, recurring, and chemo-resistant cancers, that do not respond well to current treatment regimen. An electrical-pulse-mediated, enhanced drug delivery technique known as electroporation is one way to effectively treat these patients.

This technique is especially suitable for low- and middle-income countries, where lack of infrastructure and resources leads to cancer diagnoses at late stages. This quick, safe, effective, economical, out-patient-based technique is a boon to these patients for palliative and other care with enhanced quality of life. This book features discussions by interdisciplinary authors?including practicing oncological surgeons, medical professionals, and academic and other researchers?of the basics and clinical medical applications of electroporation.

• Dedication
• Epigraph
• List of figures and tables
  • Figures
  • Tables
• Acknowledgments
• About the editor
• About the contributors
• Introduction
  • Motivation:
  • Organization of the chapters
  • Audience
• 1. Electrochemotherapy – A novel cancer treatment
  • Abstract:
  • 1.1 Why electrochemotherapy?
  • 1.2 References
• 2. Clinical electrochemotherapy for chest wall recurrence from breast cancer
  • Abstract:
  • 2.1 Introduction
  • 2.2 Scope of the problem
  • 2.3 Treatment options for chest wall recurrence
  • 2.4 Clinical experience with electrochemotherapy
  • 2.5 Electrochemotherapy: the engineer’s point of view
  • 2.6 Conclusions and perspectives
  • 2.7 Acknowledgments
  • 2.8 References
• 3. Clinical electrochemotherapy for advanced superficial melanoma
  • Abstract:
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Therapeutic options in advanced melanoma
  • 3.3 Clinical experience with electrochemotherapy
  • 3.4 Conclusions and perspectives
  • 3.5 References
• 4. Low and high voltage electrochemotherapy for breast cancer: an in vitro model study
  • Abstract:
  • 4.1 Introduction
  • 4.2 Anatomy of the breast and its cancer
  • 4.3 Drug delivery issues
  • 4.4 Chemotherapy issues
  • 4.5 Common adverse effects of anticancer drugs
  • 4.6 Anticancer drug resistance
  • 4.7 Electroporation and electrochemotherapy
  • 4.8 Materials and methods
  • 4.9 Results and discussion
  • 4.10 Conclusions
  • 4.11 Acknowledgments
  • 4.12 References
• 5. Why electroporation is a useful technique for cancer treatments
  • Abstract:
  • 5.1 Introduction
  • 5.2 What is electroporation (EP)?
  • 5.3 Irreversible electroporation (IRE)
  • 5.4 Electrochemotherapy (ECT)
  • 5.5 Example of a hydrophilic agent used with electrochemotherapy
  • 5.6 Local delivery by intratumoral injection versus systemic administration in EP
  • 5.7 Prerequisites for effective ECT
  • 5.8 ECT can overcome multidrug resistance
  • 5.9 Intense nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs)
  • 5.10 Electroporation therapies can produce a reduction in blood flow to tumors
  • 5.11 Properties of solid tumors
  • 5.12 Why do tumors have increased susceptibility to (EP) permeabilizing pulses, compared to that of normal tissue?
  • 5.13 Membrane composition and mineral concentrations of cancer cells affect the electrical properties
  • 5.14 Oxygen levels vary in solid tumors
  • 5.15 Glycolysis and pH
  • 5.16 Conclusions
  • 5.17 References
• 6. Electrically-enhanced proliferation control of cancer-stem-cells-like adult human mesenchymal stem cells – a novel modality of treatment
  • Abstract:
  • 6.1 Introduction – stem cells
  • 6.2 Mesenchymal stem cells
  • 6.3 Cancer and cancer stem cells
  • 6.4 Electrochemotherapy
  • 6.5 In-vitro study of ECT on MSC
  • 6.6 Materials and methods
  • 6.7 Results and analyses
  • 6.8 Discussion and conclusions
  • 6.9 Future directions
  • 6.10 Acknowledgments
  • 6.11 References
• 7. An in vitro study of electroporation of leukemia and cervical cancer cells
  • Abstract:
  • 7.1 Introduction
  • 7.2 Materials and methods
  • 7.3 Results and analysis
  • 7.4 Conclusions
  • 7.5 Acknowledgments
  • 7.6 References
• 8. Low voltage nanosecond electroporation for breast cancer treatment: an in vitro study
  • Abstract:
  • 8.1 Introduction
  • 8.2 Materials and methods
  • 8.3 Results and analysis
  • 8.4 Discussion and conclusions
  • 8.5 Acknowledgment
  • 8.6 References
• 9. Low and high voltage electroporation of in vitro human ovarian adenocarcinoma cells
  • Abstract:
  • 9.1 Introduction
  • 9.2 Materials and methods
  • 9.3 Results and analysis
  • 9.4 Discussion and summary
  • 9.5 Acknowledgments
  • 9.6 References
• 10. Irreversible electroporation: a drug-free cancer treatment
  • Abstract:
  • 10.1 Introduction
  • 10.2 Materials and methods
  • 10.3 Results and analyses
  • 10.4 Discussion and conclusions
  • 10.5 Acknowledgments
  • 10.6 References
• 11. Targeted delivery of siRNA and other difficult to transfect molecules using electroporation: current status and future scope
  • Abstract:
  • 11.1 Introduction
  • 11.2 siRNA – a potential therapeutic tool for cancer treatment
  • 11.3 siRNA-Gene targets in Cancer
  • 11.4 Delivery of siRNA
  • 11.5 Electroporation-based siRNA delivery
  • 11.6 Summary and Future Scope
  • 11.7 References
• 12. Electric field distribution study of breast tumors
  • Abstract:
  • 12.1 Introduction
  • 12.2 Electric field concepts
  • 12.3 Electrical properties of cells
  • 12.4 Finite element modeling
  • 12.5 Electric field intensity used in clinical electrochemotherapy
  • 12.6 Electrodes used
  • 12.7 Thermal effects of electroporation
  • 12.8 Simulation
  • 12.9 Breast modeling
  • 12.10 Results and discussion
  • 12.11 Conclusions
  • 12.12 References
• Index

• Provides novel and recent clinical applications of electrochemotherapy for various cancers, including melanomas, sarcomas, superficial extreme melanoma, chest wall breast carcinoma, and colorectal cancers
• Extensive study of a number of cell lines, including human breast cancer, lung cancer, cervical cancer, leukemia, and mouse breast cancer using both reversible and irreversible electroporation techniques
• In vitro study of delivery of various commonly prescribed/administered breast cancer chemo and hormone drugs, such as Doxorubicin, Paclitaxel, Bleomycin, and Tamoxifen