Effective pancreatic cancer treatment using electrical pulses: An in vitro model study

The pitiful response rate of less than 25% to the pancreatic chemodrugs indicates that currently the cancer of pancreas is very difficult to treat. This is because early-stage pancreatic cancer rarely causes any significant symptoms. The condition is often not detected until the cancer is relatively advanced. In addition, the pancreatic cancers are chemoresistant and hence chemotherapy doesn´t work many times. A previous research reported that 21 pancreatic cell lines studied showed major resistance to the chemo treatment using Gemcitabine and/or other drugs. There is a critical need for alternative therapies and electrical-pulse-mediated chemotherapy, known as electrochemotherapy has the potential to treat pancreatic cancer. Towards this, we studied the effect of Gemcitabine, along with 1200V/cm, 100μs (8 pulses at one second interval) and 500V/cm, 25ms (2 pulses at one second interval) pulses on Panc-1 pancreatic cells. Gemcitabine concentration used was 100μM. The viability results, 31%, using the 500V/cm pulses compared to the viability of 79% with drug only indicates that using appropriate electrical pulse parameters, it is possible to obtain the desired cell death due to the synergy of the drug and the electrical pulses. This budding novel therapy could be effectively transferred to clinics for treating pancreatic cancer.