3D Assessment of Irreversible Electroporation Treatments in Vegetal Models

Ablative techniques based on irreversible electroporation (IRE) have emerged as an effective cancer therapy. In these treatments electrical pulses are delivered in order to induce irrecoverable damage to the cell membranes, thus, causing cell death. An interesting feature of electroporation treatments is the capability to predict shape and extension of lesions by means of mathematical simulations. Those prediction methods have been refined thought in-vivo experimental observations. Aiming at minimization of animal experiments, vegetal models have been used to easily observe the IRE outcomes. However, these observations are limited at the surface of the tissue. Here we present an improved method able to observe the inner parts of the tissue and therefore evaluate in three-dimensions the results of IRE using potatoes as vegetal models. The technique consists in using a dye solution to enhance the IRE area in sliced potato tubers. After slice digitalization, the electroporated area is automatically identified and the resulting treated volume is calculated. In addition, a three-dimensional reconstruction of both healthy tissue and IRE volume is generated. The proposed evaluation technique was used to assess different pulse protocols outcomes. Numerical simulations had been carried out to compare the numerical predictions to the experimental observations. The obtained results show a clear match between experimental and simulated volumes confirming the reliability of the proposed method.