Low voltage nanosecond electroporation for breast cancer treatment: an in vitro study

Increasing breast cancer mortality worldwide indicates the critical need for alternate therapies. New technologies are needed for improving treatment outcomes and reducing breast cancer related deaths. To treat and enhance the efficacy of drug delivery, electroporation (EP) was used to improve the uptake of hormone (endocrine) drugs. Typically, 100 microsecond ( μ s) pulses are used for electro-chemotherapy. Use of nanosecond (ns) pulses, at very high intensities, such as 10–300 kV/cm is gaining momentum.Considering that it is always safe to use low voltage for patient treatments, we hypothesized that the use of low intensity, ns pulses for longer durations may result in efficient transfer of external drug moieties into cytosol. Towards that end, we have designed and built a MOSFET-based, ns pulse generator and studied the efficacy of various low electric field intensities on MCF-7 cells for efficient uptake of the FDA approved, anti-hormone drug Tamoxifen. Results indicate that low voltage, ns pulses are effective in killing breast cancer cells, demonstrating that low voltage, ns electro-endocrinetherapy has a promising potential for the treatment of breast cancer.