Electroacoustic tomography (EAT): 2D electric field reconstruction for electroporation treatment monitoring

Abstract

Electroporation is a technique that uses short-duration (nanosecond to microsecond) high-voltage electric pulses to create temporary pores in cell membranes or irreversibly destroys target cells for cancer treatment. The versatility of electroporation makes the technique ideal for direct drug delivery and cancer treatment. Electroacoustic tomography (EAT) is a novel imaging modality for electroporation treatment monitoring, that utilizes the existing energy deposited by highvoltage electrical fields created in the electroporation process. In EAT, ultrasound waves are generated by the deposited electric potential energy and captured by different configurations of ultrasound transducers. After being captured, the ultrasound information is used to reconstruct the geometric information of the electric field distribution in the target medium. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of electroacoustic tomography (EAT) by creating a 2D reconstruction of an electric field in the water. A custom high-voltage electric pulse generating device was made for delivering nanosecond duration pulses in water through two electrodes. A 500Khz ultrasound transducer was placed near the electrodes and rotated to capture the acoustic information from 180 positions. The corresponding 2D reconstruction of the electric field in water was completed by using filtered back-projection algorithm. The successful reconstruction of the electrical field in water marks the important step of EAT development for in-situ electroporation monitoring.