No abstract

Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a local anticancer treatment based on the combination of chemotherapy and short, tumorpermeabilizing, voltage pulses delivered using needle electrodes or plate electrodes. The application of ECT to large skin surface tumors is time consuming due to technical limitations of currently available voltage applicators. The availability of large pulse applicators with few and more spaced needle electrodes could be useful in the clinic, since they could allow managing large and spread tumors while limiting the duration and the invasiveness of the procedure. In this article, a grid electrode with 2-cm spaced needles has been studied by means of numerical models. The electroporation efficiency has been assessed on human osteosarcoma cell line MG63 cultured in monolayer. The computational results show the distribution of the electric field in a model of the treated tissue. These results are helpful to evaluate the effect of the needle distance on the electric field distribution. Furthermore, the in vitro tests showed that the grid electrode proposed is suitable to electropore, by a single application, a cell culture covering an area of 55 cm 2 . In conclusion, our data might represent substantial improvement in ECT in order to achieve a more homogeneous and time-saving treatment, with benefits for patients with cancer.

Ferrofluids are nanomaterials consisting of magnetic nanoparticles that are dispersed in a carrier fluid. Their physical properties, and hence their field of application are determined by intertwined compositional, structural, and magnetic characteristics, including interparticle magnetic interactions. Magnetic nanoparticles were prepared by thermal decomposition of iron(III) chloride hexahydrate (FeCl3·6H2O) in 2-pyrrolidone, and were then dispersed in two different fluids, water and polyethylene glycol 400 (PEG). A number of experimental techniques (especially, transmission electron microscopy, Mössbauer spectroscopy and superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometry) were employed to study both the as-prepared nanoparticles and the ferrofluids. We show that, with the adopted synthesis parameters of temperature and FeCl3 relative concentration, nanoparticles are obtained that mainly consist of maghemite and present a high degree of structural disorder and strong spin canting, resulting in a low saturation magnetization (~45 emu/g). A remarkable feature is that the nanoparticles, ultimately due to the presence of 2-pyrrolidone at their surface, are arranged in nanoflower-shape structures, which are substantially stable in water and tend to disaggregate in PEG. The different arrangement of the nanoparticles in the two fluids implies a different strength of dipolar magnetic interactions, as revealed by the analysis of their magnetothermal behavior. The comparison between the magnetic heating capacities of the two ferrofluids demonstrates the possibility of tailoring the performances of the produced nanoparticles by exploiting the interplay with the carrier fluid.

Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a local anticancer treatment for superficial tumors which involves the administration of a chemotherapeutic drug followed by short, high-voltage pulses. Incipient clinical experience with breast cancer patients are encouraging, with a local complete response rate ranging from 50 to 90%. However, since many patients present with multiple or widespread metastases, ECT, despite its high local antitumor efficacy, need to be applied several times in order to complete treatment delivery or maintain tumor control during the follow-up. In this paper, we propose the prototype of a new grid electrode aimed at the improvement of ECT application. The device is suitable for treating large, tumor-infiltrated skin surfaces as in breast cancer patients with chest wall metastases after mastectomy. According to our tests in different in vitro models, the new device allows to apply the voltage pulses more quickly and homogeneously when compared with standard pulse applicators. This technical advancement holds promise for improving ECT outcome and, hopefully, for sparing a number of patients from the need of multiple treatments