Bringing numerical treatment planning for electroporation based therapies into clinical practice

Electroporation occurs when cells are exposed to sufficiently strong external electric field. This can be used to introduce therapeutic molecules inside the target cells, or to directly cause cell death. Since the electric field strength has a very inhomogeneous distribution around needle electrodes, and the difference in conductivity between various normal and malignant tissues which affects the electric field distribution even more, numerical modelling can be essential in treatment planning and development of new treatments in the field of oncology. Presentation will detail methods of treatment planning and the current state of the art.