Electrochemotherapy and immune interactions; A boost to the system?

Abstract

Electrochemotherapy (ECT), the application of an electric impulse to deliver chemotherapy drugs into cells, has been in clinical trials since the early 1990s and has been used for a variety of different malignancies including melanoma and sarcoma. A standard operating procedure for the use of ECT in clinical settings has been established since 2006. ECT is very effective in reducing the local tumour burden via T-cell dependent killing of the cancer cells; however abscopal effects are not consistently observed. Currently little is known or understood about how ECT affects the immune cell population within the treated tumour and how these changes could impact the immune response. In this manuscript, we will review the current knowledge on ECT in the context of its interactions with the immune system and discuss how the gained knowledge could be harnessed to develop a potent ECT-immune co-treatment combination (Electroimmunotherapy).