Simulation of In Vivo Irreversible Electroporation Renal Ablations

Irreversible electroporation (IRE) uses brief electric pulses to irrecoverably disrupt cell membranes, leading to cell death in a volume of tissue while leaving proteins and the extracellular matrix intact. This enables ablation without damaging blood vessels, ductal systems, and other sensitive structures. IRE has numerous indications, yet clear determination of effective lethal electric field thresholds for a number of tissues remains. In the presented work, a clinically relevant IRE electric pulse protocol is used to create focal renal ablations in canines while measuring electrical currents. Electrical data and resulting acute lesions are used to calibrate numerical models, which determined an electric field threshold of 506 V/cm (range 485 to 526 V/cm) that kills healthy renal tissue when applying a pulsing protocol of one hundred, 100 μs long pulses at a rate of one pulse per second.