Electrochemotherapy: a new treatment of solid tumors

Electrochemotherapy is a new local treatment of the solid tumors that can be defined as the local potentiation, by means of permeabilizing electric pulses, of the antitumor activity of non-permeant (e.g. bleomycin) or low-permeant (e.g. cisplatin) anticancer drugs. The electric pulses are delivered locally on the solid tumors, after the intravenous or intralesional injection of the chemotherapy agent. In this review, the basis of the electrochemotherapy are recalled. Then, after summarizing clinical data, we present some results of the European project Cliniporator, as well as the new pulse generator, the Cliniporator, that incorporates new features resulting from this research project, and that is fully conceived for a clinical use. Finally, future perspectives are discussed.