Tissue Ablation by a Synergistic Combination of Electroporation and Electrolysis Delivered by a Single Pulse

A synergistic combination of electroporation and electrolysis (SEE) has been found with distinct advantages over tissue ablation by electrolysis or electroporation alone. Minimally invasive tissue ablation by electrolysis uses a low magnitude direct electric current to produce a lesion due to the creation of chemical products that result in cell death. Electroporation creates permeabilizations in the cell membrane which may lead to loss of cell homeostasis and cell death. When these two modes of tissue ablation are combined, a more effective method of cell death is achieved, likely due to the ability of electrolytic products to access the cell interior through the permeabilized cell membrane. Here, a new method of achieving SEE tissue ablation is obtained through the application of a single exponential decay pulse. This parametric study explores the mechanisms of damage as a function of the initial electric field and amount of delivered charge. It is seen that treatment parameters can dictate the mode of tissue ablation, either by SEE or by irreversible electroporation alone.