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Electroporation-Based Biopsy Treatment Planning with Numerical Models and Tissue Phantoms

  • S.I.: Electroporation for Medical Applications and Biotechnology
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Abstract

Molecular sampling with vacuum-assisted tissue electroporation is a novel, minimally invasive method for molecular profiling of solid lesions. In this paper, we report on the design of the battery-powered pulsed electric field generator and electrode configuration for an electroporation-based molecular sampling device for skin cancer diagnostics. Using numerical models of skin electroporation corroborated by the potato tissue phantom model, we show that the electroporated tissue volume, which is the maximum volume for biomarker sampling, strongly depends on the electrode’s geometry, needle electrode skin penetration depths, and the applied pulsed electric field protocol. In addition, using excised human basal cell carcinoma (BCC) tissues, we show that diffusion of proteins out of human BCC tissues into water strongly depends on the strength of the applied electric field and on the time after the field application. The developed numerical simulations, confirmed by experiments in potato tissue phantoms and excised human cancer lesions, provide essential tools for the development of electroporation-based molecular markers sampling devices for personalized skin cancer diagnostics.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology, the TAU SPARK Fund, the TAU Zimin Center for Technologies for Better Life, and the EuroNanoMed MATISSE Project for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Porter School of Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Batel Gabay, Klimentiy Levkov, Julia Wise, Edward Vitkin & Alexander Golberg

  2. Department of Plastic Surgery, Meir Medical Center, Kfar Sava, Israel

    Ariel Berl, Ofir Shir-az & Avshalom Shalom

  3. Faculty of Natural Sciences, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Gintautas Saulis

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  1. Batel Gabay
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  2. Klimentiy Levkov
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  3. Ariel Berl
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  4. Julia Wise
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  9. Alexander Golberg
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Contributions

BG: experiment, numerical modeling, manuscript drafting, KL: engineering, device development, experiment, AB: experiments, samples collection, pathology, clinics, EV: statistical analysis, OS: experiments, samples collection, pathology, clinics, JW: experiments, protein sampling, and analysis, AS: conceptualization, critical manuscript review, AG: conceptualization, experiment, data analysis, manuscript drafting.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander Golberg.

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Conflict of interest

A patent application was filed to protect the electroporation-based sampling technology described herein as invented by AG, JW, EV, AS, KL. The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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Associate Editor Rafael Vidal Davalos oversaw the review of this article.

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https://github.com/GolbergLab/eBiopsyDeviceModels.git.

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Gabay, B., Levkov, K., Berl, A. et al. Electroporation-Based Biopsy Treatment Planning with Numerical Models and Tissue Phantoms. Ann Biomed Eng 52, 71–88 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-023-03208-y

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