Journal of Advances in Technology and Engineering Studies JATER 2017, 3(2): 27-33 PRIMARY RESEARCH Low amplitude pulse electric ϐield for elimination of unpleasant sensation associated with high amplitude electric ϐield for electrochemotherapy Hassan Buhari Mamman 1 , Muhammad Mahadi Abdul Jamil 2* , Mohamad Nazib Adon 3 1, 2, 3 Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia Index Terms Electroporation Electric Field Electrochemotherapy Permeabilization Cell Attachment Cell Proliferation Received: 7 October 2016 Accepted: 10 February 2017 Published: 21 April 2017 Abstract— Electrochemotherapy is a combined use of a chemotherapeutic drug and short intense elec- tric ϐield for cancer treatment. The applied electric ϐield increases the permeability of the cell membrane thereby increasing the free entrance of the drug into the cancer cell for effective treatment at minimal drug dose. However, patients undergoing electrochemotherapy in clinical trial complain of unpleasant sensation due to muscle contraction during the pulse delivery (usually 1000V/cm, 100µs, and 8 numbers of pulses). This unpleasant sensation is caused because of the high amplitude of pulse or due to the low repetition frequency of the pulse (1Hz). Hence, in this paper, a low voltage amplitude (600V/cm) electric pulse at rel- atively higher pulse durations ranging from 500µs to 20ms was used in electroporating cells in vitro. The percentage of cell permeabilization and viability of the different pulse durations were measured. The re- sult revealed that 500µs duration stimulates the cell proliferation and 20ms result in 90% of cell death. On the other hand 5ms pulse duration resulted in 65% permeabilization and 80% viability. Hence the study suggested that 600V/cm at 5ms duration can be used for electrochemotherapy to potentially eliminate the unpleasant sensation associated with high amplitude pulse. ©2017 TAF Publishing. All rights reserved. I. INTRODUCTION Exposing biological cells to a high electric ϐield of short duration induces an extra potential on the cell mem- brane, which superimposes on the membrane resting volt- age that is continuously under physiological conditions [1]. The resting membrane potential has a value in the range of -40mV to -80mV depending on the cell type, size, and com- position [2-4]. However, if the induced potential reaches a threshold value of 0.2-1V, a localized structural rearrange- ment of lipid bilayer occurrs [5]. This results in formation of nanopores in the cell membrane and hence, increases the membrane permeability and conductivity [6]. Thus, molecules that are otherwise impermeable to membrane can easily enter into the membrane. This process is electro- permeabilization or electroporation [7-9]. Ever since its discovery, electroporation has been used effectively for nu- merous applications in biotechnology and biomedical en- gineering. These applications include but not limited to gene therapy [10-11], electrochemotherapy (ECT) [12-15], electro-fusion [16-17], electro-sterilization [18] and tumor tissue ablation [19-20]. Among these applications, elec- trochemotherapy is progressing much more and now it has reached pre-clinical and clinical trials [21]. The use of chemotherapeutic drugs joined together with electroporation is called electrochemotherapy. Elec- trochemotherapy facilitates the delivery of chemotherapeu- tic drugs to malignant cell [22]. Many chemotherapeutic drugs cannot cross the cell membrane under normal con- dition. Therefore, with the help of electrochemotherapy, this can easily be achieved by creating pores in the cell membrane by the use of an electric ϐield [22]. Commonly used drugs for chemotherapy such as bleomycin and cis- platin were found to be much more effective in the elec- trochemotherapy than in only chemotherapy when applied * Corresponding author: Muhammad Mahadi Abdul Jamil † Email: mahadi@uthm.edu.my