Modeling Methods for Treatment Planning in Overlapping Electroporation Treatments

Area of Science:

• Biophysics
• Medical Engineering
• Cell Biology

Background:

• Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a non-thermal ablation therapy using high voltage.
• Current methods compute treatment volume (TV) as a geometric union, ignoring treatment overlap.
• Previous models predicted TV with overlapping fields, but overlap quantification was lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize treatment volume (TV) overlap in irreversible electroporation (IRE).
• To compare existing TV prediction methods with a novel adapted logistic model.
• To evaluate the impact of treatment overlap on TV prediction accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells immobilized in agarose gel.
• Characterization of electric field thresholds and cell survival probability under overlapping treatments.
• Validation of TV prediction models in a 2D setup.

Main Results:

• Overlap can lower the electric field threshold for cell death, especially with fewer pulses.
• Treatment overlap showed a minor impact on the total treatment volume (TV) in the studied models.
• All assessed methods demonstrated similar accuracy in predicting TV.

Conclusions:

• Treatment overlap has a minor influence on the total treatment volume (TV) in typical IRE protocols.
• The modeling methods currently used in pre-clinical and clinical IRE studies appear adequate.
• Further research could explore overlap effects in more complex biological tissues.