Electrochemotherapy for the treatment of human sarcoma in athymic rats

Electrochemotherapy is the combined use of a chemotherapeutic agent and pulsed electric fields. Electrical treatment causes an increase in cell membrane permeability which allows the chemotherapeutic agent to more freely enter the tumor cells. Electrochemotherapy has been under development in clinical trials. This study focused on determining the applicability of electrochemotherapy for treating soft tissue sarcoma using an animal model bearing human sarcomas. The antitumor effects of several concentrations of cisplatin, bleomycin, doxorubicin, and netropsin as single agents delivered with electric pulses were investigated based on post-treatment tumor volumes and histology. Electrochemotherapy treatment resulted in 5% to 88.9% durable complete responses; ECT that employed bleomycin resulted in the highest antitumor effects. This indicates the feasibility of electrochemotherapy as a modality for limb preserving treatments for sarcoma of the extremities.