Histopathological follow-up by tissue micro-array in a survival study after melanoma treated by nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEF)

Abstract

A recent study has shown that nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEF) can affect the intracellular structures of melanoma within weeks. nsPEF is a non-drug, non-thermal treatment using ultrashort, intense pulsed electric fields with nanosecond durations. In the current study we followed up melanoma histopathology and metastasis with tissue micro-array 5 months post-nsPEF. After nsPEF treatment, tumor growth, tumor histology, metastasis, peri-tumor vessel and micro-vessel density were examined for the effect of nsPEF treatment on melanoma in vivo. The 17 nsPEF-treated mice were tumor-free for 169 days, significantly longer than those 19 control mice bearing melanoma without nsPEF. Histopathology follow-up showed that melanoma did not recur to the primary injection place after complete elimination. Compared with the control tumor, nsPEF-treated tumors present decreased micro-vessel density in a time-course manner in this survival study. Treatment with nsPEF caused continuous histopathological changes in melanomas, eliminated melanoma without recurrence at the primary site and prolonged animal survival time by inhibiting tumor blood supply and leading to tumor infarction. Thus, nsPEF could be applied in a non-ionizing therapeutic approach, without other agents, to locally treat tumors within a defined boundary.

Key words::

• histopathological follow-up
• melanoma
• nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF)
• recurrence
• tissue micro-array

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 3070078), the Zhejiang Medical Grant (No. 2007QN006) and the Juliette Reidy Fellowship in Bioelectric Cancer Research.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.