CLINICAL APPLICATIONS OF ELECTROCHEMOTHERAPY

Abstract

Electroporation has several biomedical and industrial applications. The biomedical applications are in the field of drug or gene delivery. Electrochemotherapy utilizes electroporation for the increased delivery of cytotoxic drugs like bleomycin or cisplatin into tumors. The use of electrochemotherapy has spread throughout Europe for the treatment of cutaneous tumors or metastases. It is in the NICE guidelines and is becoming standard ablative technique in treatment of cancer. The technological advancements have also enabled the use of electrochemotherapy for the treatment of deep seated tumors, such as soft tissue or liver tumors. Clinical studies demonstrate good effectiveness on fibrosarcomas, colorectal liver metastases and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, electrochemotherapy is a local treatment that also induces moderate local immune response. This so called “in situ vaccination” induced by electrochemotherapy can be exploited in combined treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors or electrogene therapy with immunostimulating effect. Therefore, gene electrotransfer of plasmid coding for interleukin 12 (IL-12), in combination with electrochemotherapy could result in transformation of electrochemotherapy from local into systemic treatment. This is also of our current interest, and we are undertaking steps to bring this idea from preclinical into clinical testing.