The purpose of our study is to obtain, by electroporation, the reduction of the volume of the neoplastic lesion or the creation of a good cleavage plan, detaching the neoplastic mass from important vascular or nervous structures, so as to make a surgical intervention with radical intent, otherwise not executable. This method has been used in patients suffering from recurrence or cutaneous or subcutaneous metastasis of malignant neoplasms of different histology, already treated with standard therapeutic procedures (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy) and currently deemed inoperable.

Electrochemotherapy; bleomycin; Malignant tumors with skin localization

85 patients with head and neck cancer were treated with this new procedure 69 patients had squamous cell carcinoma, 16 patients with squamous cell carcinoma metastasis. The age group was between 65 and 86 years old, the average was 75.7.

In all patients, after an average of 40 days we found a reduced tumor size, assessed with objective and documented clinical and radiological tests, and bleeding arrest. This allowed radical surgery to be performed, which would otherwise not be possible (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Electro-chemotherapy in Head and Neck Cancer

The results could be considered truly effective in order to emphasize the possibilities of electrochemotherapy neoadjuvant treatment for the surgical approach to malignant neoformations, considered otherwise inoperable in size and localization.