Shawki Mamdouh M, Elblbesy Mohammed A, Shalaby Thanaa E, Qotb Metwali A, Youssef Youssef S
Medical Biophysics Department, Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Egypt.
Int J Biomed Sci. 2012 Mar;8(1):16-21.
The Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is an effective treatment of cutaneous and subcutaneous solid tumors. Electric field is applied to tumor nodules to enhance the delivery/distribution of a non-permeable or poorly permeable chemotherapeutic agent into the tumor cells thereby increasing local concentration of anticancer drugs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using two types of electric fields in ECT, pulsed sine waves and direct current (DC) application in addition to intra-tumoral injection of bleomycin (BLM), a cytotoxic drug for treating Ehrlich tumor. The electric fields were delivered through six stainless steel needle electrodes inserted into the tumor. Tumor volume, tumor mass, percentage of fragmented DNA in the tumor tissue, relative spleen mass/total body mass, mortality rate, histological and ultrastructural examinations were investigated in each group. There were 40% complete response (CR) and 60% partial response (PR) in the group treated with DC as the electric field source of ECT, while 0% (CR) and only 25% (PR) were found in the group treated with pulsed sine wave ECT. We concluded that the utilization of low dose DC for ECT gives better results than the low voltage pulsed sine waves in treating Ehrlich tumor which may be due to the dual effects of electrochemical reactions evoked by DC application and the anti-cancer activity of BLM.
电化学疗法（ECT）是一种治疗皮肤和皮下实体瘤的有效方法。将电场施加于肿瘤结节，以增强一种非渗透性或低渗透性化疗药物在肿瘤细胞中的递送/分布，从而提高抗癌药物的局部浓度。本研究的目的是评估在ECT中使用两种电场（脉冲正弦波和直流电（DC））以及瘤内注射博来霉素（BLM，一种治疗艾氏瘤的细胞毒性药物）的有效性。电场通过插入肿瘤的六个不锈钢针电极施加。对每组的肿瘤体积、肿瘤质量、肿瘤组织中碎片化DNA的百分比、相对脾脏质量/总体质量、死亡率、组织学和超微结构检查进行了研究。以DC作为ECT电场源的治疗组有40%完全缓解（CR）和60%部分缓解（PR），而以脉冲正弦波ECT治疗的组中完全缓解率为0%，部分缓解率仅为25%。我们得出结论，在治疗艾氏瘤方面，低剂量DC用于ECT比低电压脉冲正弦波效果更好，这可能是由于DC应用引发的电化学反应的双重作用以及BLM的抗癌活性。
