Endovascular nonthermal irreversible electroporation: a finite element analysis

Tissue ablation finds an increasing use in modern medicine. Nonthermal irreversible electroporation (NTIRE) is a biophysical phenomenon and an emerging novel tissue ablation modality, in which electric fields are applied in a pulsed mode to produce nanoscale defects to the cell membrane phospholipid bilayer, in such a way that Joule heating is minimized and thermal damage to other molecules in the treated volume is reduced while the cells die. Here we present a two-dimensional transient finite element model to simulate the electric field and thermal damage to the arterial wall due to an endovascular NTIRE novel device. The electric field was used to calculate the Joule heating effect, and a transient solution of the temperature is presented using the Pennes bioheat equation. This is followed by a kinetic model of the thermal damage based on the Arrhenius formulation and calculation of the Henriques and Moritz thermal damage integral. The analysis shows that the endovascular application of 90, 100 μs pulses with a potential difference of 600 V can induce electric fields of 1000 V/cm and above across the entire arterial wall, which are sufficient for irreversible electroporation. The temperature in the arterial wall reached a maximum of 66.7°C with a pulse frequency of 4 Hz. Thermal damage integral showed that this protocol will thermally damage less than 2% of the molecules around the electrodes. In conclusion, endovascular NTIRE is possible. Our study sets the theoretical basis for further preclinical and clinical trials with endovascular NTIRE.