Cancer immunotherapy by radiofrequency electrical membrane breakdown (RF-EMB)
First Claim
1. A method of ablating undesirable soft tissue in a living subject, comprising:
- introducing at least one electrode to a position within said subject, wherein said at least one electrode is electrically connected to a controller for controlling the delivery of electric pulses to said electrode, said controller comprising an electric pulse generator;
applying to said soft tissue an electric field of between 1,500 V/cm and 10,000 V/cm and having a frequency of between 14.2 kHz and 500 kHz, including delivering, from the electric pulse generator to the at least one electrode, at least one bi-polar electric pulse; and
by application of the electric field, causing electrical membrane breakdown of a cell membrane of a plurality of cells of said soft tissue to cause destruction of the cell membrane, immediate spillage of intracellular components into an extracellular space, and exposure of an internal constituent part of said cell membrane to said extracellular space.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method of non-thermally ablating undesirable tissue in the body by application of pulsed, bipolar, instant charge reversal electrical fields of sufficient energy to cause complete and immediate cell membrane rupture and destruction. Energy is delivered through radio frequency pulses of particular frequencies, wave characteristics, pulse widths and pulse numbers, such that enhanced physical stresses are placed on the cell membrane to cause its immediate and complete destruction thereby spilling the entire cell content and membrane constituents into, the extracellular space without denaturing proteins so as to enable an immunological response to destroy and remove the target tissue and similarly marked tissue elsewhere in the subject.
153 Citations
44 Claims
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1. A method of ablating undesirable soft tissue in a living subject, comprising:
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introducing at least one electrode to a position within said subject, wherein said at least one electrode is electrically connected to a controller for controlling the delivery of electric pulses to said electrode, said controller comprising an electric pulse generator;
applying to said soft tissue an electric field of between 1,500 V/cm and 10,000 V/cm and having a frequency of between 14.2 kHz and 500 kHz, including delivering, from the electric pulse generator to the at least one electrode, at least one bi-polar electric pulse; andby application of the electric field, causing electrical membrane breakdown of a cell membrane of a plurality of cells of said soft tissue to cause destruction of the cell membrane, immediate spillage of intracellular components into an extracellular space, and exposure of an internal constituent part of said cell membrane to said extracellular space. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
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40. A method of ablating undesirable soft tissue in a living subject, comprising:
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determining based on a tissue type of said soft tissue a minimum energy profile necessary to be applied to a cell of said soft tissue to cause cell membrane rupture by electrical membrane breakdown; determining a position of at least one electrode relative to said soft tissue; introducing said at least one electrode to said position within said subject, said electrode electrically connected to a controller for controlling the delivery of electric pulses to said electrode, said controller comprising an electric pulse generator; determining based on said minimum energy profile and said position of said at least one electrode an electric field strength to be applied to said soft tissue; determining based on said electric field strength a bi-polar electric pulse train profile having not less than 100 pulses, said pulse train profile characterized by a pulse number, pulse duration and inter pulse burst intervals, said pulses each having a frequency and a voltage, said voltage characterized by an instantaneous reversal of polarity; delivering from said pulse generator to said at least one electrode by said controller a series of electric pulses according to said electric pulse train profile whereby a pulsed electric field is generated, said field applying sufficient energy to a plurality of said cells of said soft tissue to cause cell death by electrical membrane breakdown.
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41. A method of increasing an immunologic response in a living subject, comprising:
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performing a non-thermal ablation treatment on undesirable soft tissue within said subject, said non-thermal ablation treatment comprising applying to said soft tissue an electric field sufficient to cause electrical membrane breakdown of a cell membrane of a plurality of cells of said soft tissue to cause immediate spillage of all intracellular components into an extracellular space and exposure of an internal constituent part of said cell membrane to said extracellular space, wherein the electric field comprises a series of bi-polar electric pulses that is characterized by an instant charge reversal between a positive and negative polarity of each cycle, and wherein the series of bi-polar electric pulses comprises; multiple sets of bi-polar pulses; and an interval separating each set of bi-polar pulses from the successive set of bi-polar pulses, in which during the interval, substantially no voltage is applied to the at least one electrode; and administering an immunologic response enhancing drug to said subject. - View Dependent Claims (42, 43, 44)
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Specification