Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is an emerging technique that has drawn attention in the field of cancer treatment. By inserting electrodes in the soft tissue, pulsed electrical fields are delivered to the cells, creating lethal nanopores in the plasma membrane to induce cell death.
There are several parameters that may influence the outcome of the IRE for a given tissue organ type. These parameters establish the IRE Dose of the treatment. However, their optimal combination is still unknown, whereby the efficiency of this technique can still be improved.
As a result, the optimal IRE Dose for pancreatic cancer will be investigated in this project. Parameters such as the number of pulses, their strength, frequency and duration will be adjusted. In addition, the influence of the distance between the inserted electrodes and their active length will be also investigated. Simulation models will be created to evaluate outcomes such as the electric field and temperature distribution. Later, experiments will be conducted using a gelatin tissue phantom in order to validate the results obtained from the numerical simulations.