Use of conductive gels for electric field homogenization increases the antitumor efficacy of electroporation therapies

Abstract

Electroporation is used in tissue for gene therapy, drug therapy and minimally invasive tissue ablation. The electrical field that develops during the application of the high voltage pulses needs to be precisely controlled. In the region to be treated, it is desirable to generate a homogeneous electric field magnitude between two specific thresholds whereas in other regions the field magnitude should be as low as possible. In the case of irregularly shaped tissue structures, such as bulky tumors, electric field homogeneity is almost impossible to be achieved with current electrode arrangements. We propose the use of conductive gels, matched to the conductivity of the tissues, to fill dead spaces between plate electrodes gripping the tissue so that the electric field distribution becomes less heterogeneous. Here it is shown that this technique indeed improves the antitumor efficacy of electrochemotherapy in sarcomas implanted in mice. Furthermore, we analyze, through finite element method simulations, how relevant the conductivity mismatches are. We found that conductivity mismatching errors are surprisingly well tolerated by the technique. Gels with conductivities ranging from 5 mS cm−1 to 10 mS cm−1 will be a proper solution for most cases.