Percutaneous irreversible electroporation of surgically unresectable pancreatic cancer: a case report

The present report describes a case of percutaneous irreversible electroporation (IRE) in a 78-year-old man with surgically unresectable stage III (tumor/node/metastasis stages, T4N0M0) pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Two ablations were performed for a 4.1-cm mass encasing the celiac and superior mesenteric artery. At 3 months, a solitary liver metastasis developed, which was treated with radiofrequency ablation followed by gemcitabine chemotherapy. At 6-month follow-up, magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated no residual disease and a decreasing cancer antigen 19-9 level. Percutaneous IRE shows promise as a feasible and potentially safe method for local tumor control in patients with surgically unresectable disease.