Effect of electroporation on radiotherapy treatment in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells

Abstract

Thanks to technological developments and clinical studies in recent years, radiotherapy has been widely used in cancer treatment, and radiation can be applied effectively to cancer cells without harming healthy tissues. However, some types of cancer cells are resistant to radiotherapy which can be applied at certain doses that do not harm normal tissues. In this context, the main purpose of this study is to increase the sensitivity of cancerous cells to radiotherapy and by doing so to reduce the negative side effects of radiotherapy with lower doses of radiation and to get more efficient results through the combined use of treatments. In this study, HepG2 (Human hepatocellular carcinoma) liver cancer cells were treated by ionizing radiation (210 kV x-ray at a dose rate of 2.1 Gy/min) or electroporation (1125 V/cm, 100 µs, 1 Hz, 8 square waves) or combination of these two therapies. Responses to these treatments were determined by the MTT viability test. It was observed that the survival rate of HepG2 cancer cells significantly decreased in the group treated with ionizing radiation after electroporation. The electrical pulses caused a 1.25-fold increase in the sensitivity of HepG-2 cancer cells to 210 kV x-ray. These results show that the application of electroporation before radiotherapy can significantly increase the sensitivity of HepG2 cancer cells.