[Electrochemotherapy: mechanism of action and clinical results in the locoregional treatment of patients with skin cancers and superficial metastases]

Electrochemotherapy (ECT) has emerged among European centers as an innovative locoregional treatment for patients with unresectable skin cancers or superficial metastases from any histotype. The combined administration of a cytotoxic agent (bleomycin or cisplatin) with properly tuned electric pulses results in locally-enhanced drug delivery (reversible electroporation) into malignant cells and sustained tumor response. Reversible electroporation represents the basis of ECT and allows the potentiation of two low permeant cytotoxic agents such as bleomycin (~8000 fold) and cisplatin (~80 fold). The procedure was standardized in 2006 - thanks to a European project - and shortly after introduced in the clinical practice. In recent years, experience with ECT has accumulated mainly in melanoma and breast cancer patients with cutaneous metastases, in whom complete response rates of 20-50% and 40-75% have been reported, respectively, depending on tumor size. Currently, this therapy is being investigated in deep-seated (i.e. bone, soft tissue) metastases and visceral malignancies (i.e. locally advanced pancreatic cancer), with encouraging results.