Background: The combination of electroporation with electrolysis (E2) has previously been introduced as a novel tissue ablation technique. E2 allows the utilization of a wide parameter range and may therefore be a suitable technology for development of tissue-specific application protocols. Previous studies have implied that it is possible to achieve big lesions in liver in a very short time. The goal of this study was to test a variety of electrode configurations for the E2 application to ablate large tissue volumes.
Materials and methods: 27 lesions were performed in healthy porcine liver of five female pigs. Four, two and bipolar electrode-arrays were used to deliver various E2 treatment protocols. Liver was harvested approx. 20h after treatment and examined with H&E and Masson's trichrome staining, and via TUNEL staining for selective specimen.
Results: All animals survived the treatments without complications. With four electrodes, a lesion of up to 35x35x35mm volume can be achieved in less than 30s. The prototype bipolar electrode created lesions of 50x18x18mm volume in less than 10s. Parameters for two-electrode ablations with large exposures encompassing large veins were found to be good in terms of vessel preservation, but not optimal to reliably close the gap between the electrodes.
Conclusion: This study demonstrates the ability to produce large lesions in liver within seconds at lower limits of the E2 parameter space at different electrode configurations. The applicability of E2 for single electrode ablations was demonstrated with bipolar electrodes. Parameters for large 4-electrode ablation volumes were found suitable, while parameters for two electrodes still need optimization. However, since the parameter space of E2 is large, it is possible that for all electrode geometries optimal waveforms and application protocols for specific tissues will emerge with continuing research.