(192k) Fundamental Study of the Electrical Field Role in Drug Delivery

Although advancement in chemotherapeutic techniques have increased exponentially, effective drug delivery during treatment continues to limit progress. The introduction of electrical fields in addition to chemotherapeutic treatment has allowed for dramatic breakthrough in overcoming these challenges faced throughout medical treatment.

In theory, applied electrical fields to identified cancerous tissue after systemic chemotherapy delivery imposes and improves direct cellular uptake at the desired site. Novel, as this approach may be, much is to be learned in the fundamental understanding of the underlying physical phenomena driving tumoral response in what is now known to be called electrochemotherapy. Previous attempts, see [Moarefian and Pascal 2015]¹, have led to an analysis in which Bessel function solution have been invoked. In this approach, the imposed Dirichlet boundary condition at the kill
radius found in the literature limit the natural minimum concentration which is better modeled by a Newman boundary condition. The objective is to present a more rigorous analysis, although exploratory, of the potential uses of electrical fields in cancer treatment.

1 Maryam Moarefian, Jennifer A Pascal. “Fundamental Mathematical Model Shows that Applied Electrical Field Enhances Chemotherapy Delivery to Tumors.” Mathematical Biosciences. December 2015.