Evaluation of Electroporation Memory in Electrochemotherapy Protocols: Ex Vivo Liver Preliminary Study

Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a cancer treatment that uses electroporation (EP) to boost chemotherapeutic drug effectiveness due to increased cell membrane permeability. The membrane effect is a phenomenon of incremented conductivity increasing beneath consecutive pulses. This preliminary study tested whether the membrane effect would occur between three consecutive ESOPE protocol applications. Further, we analyzed if it would affect the safety of ECT treatments by unsafely increasing electrical currents in the tissue. Our findings showed that electroporated membranes did not fully recover in twenty seconds after an ECT protocol. The phenomenon was well observed at the ECT levels. Still, it had a minor influence on conductivity rising, not representing a risk to ECT safety.