Abstract

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) has poor prognosis. This is due to lack of estrogen, progesterone and HER-2 receptors. About 15% of all breast cancers are TNBC. This year in the US alone, over 10000 will die due to TNBC. It is more aggressive than other breast cancers and has fewer treatment options because therapies that target hormone receptors or HER2 are ineffective. Thus, TNBC patients have limited treatment options; hence, finding effective therapies is an important area of research.
Considering that current standard of cure doesn’t serve all patients, there is a critical need for alternate therapies and electrochemotherapy (ECT), using electrical pulses for enhanced uptake of chemo drugs has the potential to be another solution to TNBC patients.
In ECT, electrical pulses are applied to open up pores that enhance the permeability of chemo drug molecules that are usually impermeable or less permeable. Typically Bleomycin (occasionally Cisplatin) is used in ECT. In clinical practice for TNBC, a combination of Gemcitabine and Cisplatin is used due to their more effectiveness compared to single drug alone. Hence, in this study we explore the efficacy of the Gemcitabine+Cisplatin combination ECT on MDA-MB-231, triple negative, human breast cancer cells.
The results indicate that cell death up to 56% is possible using selective doses and pulse conditions. This ECT combination therapy could be optimized and transferred to the clinics.

Keywords

Electrochemotherapy, Breast cancers, Triple negative breast cancer, Target hormone receptors, HER2, Gemcitabine, Cisplatin, MDA-MB-231, Estrogen receptor, Progesterone receptor, HER2/Neu, Terminating DNA-chain elongation, ?-Isomer, Adenocarcinoma, Epithelial breast cancer cells