Successful application of targeted electrochemotherapy using novel flexible electrodes and low dose bleomycin to solid tumours.

Electroporation is the application of very brief electric pulses to cells or tissues to render the cell membranes transiently and reversibly permeable, facilitating cellular uptake of otherwise impermeant molecules. Flexible electrode arrays were developed which may be used with endoscopic and laparoscopic devices for delivery of therapeutic electroporation. Their efficacy in enhancing the delivery of bleomycin, an impermeant drug, was assessed in vitro and in vivo in both human and murine cancer cell lines, and growing tumours (xenografts). These flexible electrodes consistently and predictably deliver the permeabilising electric pulses requisite for in vivo electroporation, and would be suitable for electrochemotherapy of endoluminal tumours when incorporated into an endoscopic delivery system.