A simulation analysis of large multi-electrode needle arrays for efficient electrochemotherapy of cancer tissues

Effective Electrochemotherapy is possible with suitable multi-electrode needle array geometries, especially to treat larger areas, such as thigh and chest. This is critical to expedite the application of electrical pulses at the tumor area within a few minutes, after injection of the chemo drug, such as bleomycin, at the tumor, intratumorally or intravenously. To study the efficiency of larger electrode arrays, it is necessary to analyze their electric field distributions. This can be done by designing an effective model with electric needles so that an electric field of 1200 volts/cm could be generated at the point of tumor. To simulate these models with various configurations of electric needles, Maxwell 13 software was used. All the models were implemented in 2-D analysis. Several models with various number of electrodes were studied, including 2×2, 4×2, 4×4, and 12×2 configurations. The simulation results show uniform electric field over the desired area. The significance of this research is that using novel, multi-electrode needle arrays, a larger area of the cancer affected tissue can be treated faster than currently used 4mm needle arrays.