[A new progress of cancer therapy: irreversible electrical breakdown of pulse therapy]

Depending on the specified electric field parameters such as electrical field strength and duration, electrical pulses have generally been applied in biomedical fields. Conventional electroporation is commonly used for cell fusion, transfection, electrochemotherapy and so on. Recently, pulse electric fields with high strength (MV/cm) and duration of several tens of nanoseconds can affect intracellular signal transduction and intracellular structures with plasma intact, owing to the application of intracellular manipulation. Most researches indicate that parameters between those two ranges could be used to result in an inreversible apoptosis of cancer cells. The procedure between electroporation and intracellular manipulation is irreversible electrical breakdown (IREB). IREB selectively kills tumor cells by inducing cell apoptosis; thus it might provide a new method for cancer therapy.