Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pathology
Open Access

Research Article

Electrical Membrane Breakdown (EMB): Preliminary Findings of a New Method of Non-thermal Tissue Ablation

Onic GM^1,2, Bostwick DG^1*, Miessau JA¹, Webb Z³ and Friedman MB⁴

¹RFEMB Holdings, LLC, 4724 Lake Calabay Drive, Orlando, FL, USA

²Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA, USA

³Department of Pathology, University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, Oklahoma City, OK, USA

⁴Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Veterans Administration Connecticut Health Care System, Yale University School of Medicine, West Haven, CT, USA

*Corresponding Author:

David G. Bostwick
RFEMB Holdings, 4724 Lake Calabay Drive
Orlando, FL 32837, USA
Tel: 804-677-8527
E-mail: dbostwick@grangergenetics.com

Received date: July 07, 2017; Accepted date: August 02, 2017; Published date: August 07, 2017

Citation: Onic GM, Bostwick DG, Miessau. Esq JA, Webb Z, Friedman MB (2017) Electrical Membrane Breakdown (EMB): Preliminary Findings of a New Method of Non-thermal Tissue Ablation. J Clin Exp Pathol 7:319. doi: 10.4172/2161-0681.1000319

Copyright: © 2017 Onik GM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Electrical membrane breakdown (EMB) is a novel form of non-thermal treatment that has not, to our knowledge, been previously evaluated for its potential utility as an ablation mechanism. The findings with EMB immediately after treatment were compared with other forms of ablation (cryoablation and IRE (irreversible electroporation)) in the porcine liver clinically, ultrasonographically, and by light microscopy and ultrastructural analysis. Clinically, EMB did not induce muscular contractions, in contrast with IRE. By ultrasound, all lesions were hypoechoic when compared to the untreated liver. EMB created a consistent pattern of immediate tissue destruction at the light microscopic and ultrastructural level, characterized by pulse-dose-related coagulative necrosis and nuclear pyknosis, preserved blood vessels and adjacent structures, and sharply demarcated margins. We conclude that the profile of EMB ablation is distinctive and unique, inducing necrosis by immediate electrical rupture of cell membranes non-thermally while preserving proteins and adjacent vessels with potentially superior stimulation of the immune system than other ablation modalities.

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