Authors' objectives: To know the scientific evidence on effectiveness and safety of ECT in tumours treatment, and to assess the foreseeable impact of using this treatment.

Authors' recommendations: Electrochemotherapy is an effective procedure for the treatment of local malignant tumours, but we found a medium level of evidence and studies included in the review have certain limitations. Meta-analysis show favorable results for electrochemotherapy versus chemotherapy. We did not find studies comparing electrochemotherapy versus other therapeutic alternatives, which would be very interesting to determine clinical relevance of electrochemotherapy. Electrochemotherapy is most used for the treatment of cutaneous and subcutaneous malignant tumours, mainly melanoma and non-melanoma tumours, but electrochemotherapy is also used in the treatment of different histological types of tumours, and different body locations as breast, bowel or liver. Electrochemotherapy is mainly used in the treatment of cutaneous and subcutaneous metastases, but it is used in primary tumours as well. The most frequent reason for clinicians using electrochemotherapy is non-response or partial response to standard treatment. The most common chemotherapy drug used was Bleomicine; the most frequent administration route was intratumoral administration followed by intravenous. Although results show electrochemotherapy is an effective treatment for the local control of the tumour, we did not find any evidence that electrochemotherapy can change the natural course of disease or affect patient survival. Electrochemotherapy is a procedure safe, without relevant side effects for patients. Most frequent adverse effects were pain, muscle contraction, erythema or slight oedema at the site of the treated areas. In the majority of cases symptoms were mild and disappear after few days. We did not find studies assessing impact of electrochemotherapy in clinical practice. Nevertheless, scientific literature highlight that electrochemotherapy is feasible procedure. It is easy and quick to perform, well tolerated and acceptable by the treated patients. The cost of the treatment is not expensive. Electroporation is considered a procedure with potential application to therapeutic modalities in the future. The procedure can be used combined with gene and immunotherapy, opening the way for many other possible treatments.

Project Status: Completed

Year Published: 2011

URL for published report: http://www.isciii.es/ISCIII/es/contenidos/fd-publicaciones-isciii/fd-documentos/IPE_65.pdf

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Spain

Organisation Name: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias

Contact Address: Instituto de Salud "Carlos III", Calle Sinesio Delgado 6, Pabellon 4, 28029 Madrid, Spain. Tel: +34 9 1 822 2005; Fax: +34 9 1 387 7841;

Contact Name: Luis M. Sánchez Gómez

Contact Email: luism.sanchez@isciii.es

Copyright: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias (AETS)