Selective Electroporation of Liver Tumor Nodules by Means of Hypersaline Infusion: A Feasibility Study

Spread tumors in liver are not suitable to be treated with local treatments, such as conventional surgery or radiofrequency ablation, thus entailing a poor prognosis. Electroporation-based therapies imply the delivery of pulsed high electric fields and currently are performed in a local fashion using needle or plate electrodes. Here, however, it is proposed a novel electroporation paradigm in which field delivery is not local. All the tumor nodules will be selectively treated using large plate electrodes at both sides of the liver. By infusing an hypersaline solution of high electrical conductivity through the portal vein, the electrical conductivity of healthy tissues and tumor nodules will be made significantly different so that the electric field will be focused on the undesirable tissues. Numerical simulations were used to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed technique. In addition, an in vivo procedure was carried out to assess whether it is possible and practical to significantly modify the conductivity of the liver tissue by hypersaline infusion. Both the numerical simulations and the in vivo procedure provided encouraging results.