Treatment of metastatic melanoma using electroporation therapy with bleomycin (electrochemotherapy)

Electroporation therapy (EPT) is a novel treatment modality that uses brief, high-intensity, pulsed electrical currents to enhance the uptake of chemotherapeutic agents, vaccines and genes into cells. This technique is potentially useful for patients with secondary and, possibly, some primary tumours. Nineteen patients with metastatic melanoma were enrolled in a phase two, randomized, open-label study comparing intralesional bleomycin+EPT with intralesional bleomycin alone. Of 18 study lesions, 13 (72%) showed a complete response, one (5%) showed a partial response, three (18%) showed no change and one (5%) showed disease progression over a period of greater than 12 weeks. This represents a 78% objective response rate, which was significantly greater than the 32% response rate observed in the 19 patients with tumours treated with intralesional bleomycin alone (chi=7.94, 1 df, P=0.005). An additional 36 lesions, not enrolled in the study, were also treated with bleomycin+EPT. Of the total of 54 lesions treated with bleomycin+EPT, there was a 72% objective response rate. EPT treatment was well tolerated and was performed on an outpatient basis.