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Electric field computation and measurements in the electroporation of inhomogeneous samples

2017; De Gruyter Open; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1515/phys-2017-0092

2391-5471

Alessia Bernardis, Mònica Bulló, L Campana, Paolo Di Barba, Fabrizio Dughiero, Michele Forzan, Maria Evelina Mognaschi, Paolo Sgarbossa, Elisabetta Sieni,

Pulsed Power Technology Applications

Abstract In clinical treatments of a class of tumors, e . g . skin tumors, the drug uptake of tumor tissue is helped by means of a pulsed electric field, which permeabilizes the cell membranes. This technique, which is called electroporation, exploits the conductivity of the tissues: however, the tumor tissue could be characterized by inhomogeneous areas, eventually causing a non-uniform distribution of current. In this paper, the authors propose a field model to predict the effect of tissue inhomogeneity, which can affect the current density distribution. In particular, finite-element simulations, considering non-linear conductivity against field relationship, are developed. Measurements on a set of samples subject to controlled inhomogeneity make it possible to assess the numerical model in view of identifying the equivalent resistance between pairs of electrodes.