Electrochemotherapy
The electrochemotherapy (ECT ) is a currently tested in clinical trials process of palliative therapy superficially situated tumors, which is to carry chemotherapeutic agents by electroporation into the cell interior. By local application of short and intense electric pulses, the pores of the cell membrane to open and temporarily permeable to molecules that have a cell membrane could not penetrate otherwise. First applications include bleomycin and cisplatin against skin cancer, superficial sarcomas, and head and neck tumors. The Anprechraten these drugs were significantly higher than without electroporation in the preliminary studies.
In addition to simple devices that are sold only in the spa, some providers also offer equipment for medical electroporation. The devices offered work such as a voltage of 1000 volts, and eight pulses of 100 microseconds.
Clinical Relevance
In a series of clinical studies, a significant response was assessed by applying the electric chemotherapy using certain chemotherapeutic agents with different cutaneous or subcutaneous metastases or tumors detected with advantages over other purely chemotherapeutic procedures relating to reduction in tumor size. The published in January 2013 S3 - Guideline of the AWMF for melanoma is a weak recommendation ( " can be applied ") for the ECT in patients with satellite and in - transit metastases.