magnetoporation: new method for permeabilization of cancerous cells to hydrophilic drugs

Background: in the present study, we investigated the application of pulsed magnetic field (mf) (3.5 t, 1 hz, 8 square-wave/160 μs) permeabilization on murine breast adenocarcinoma cells when administering bleomycin (blm) in vivo. objective: this cross-over study aims to find a noninvasive method to facilitate penetration of hydrophilic anti-cancer drugs through the cancerous cells membrane into the cytosoll in order to minimize the side effects of the chemotherapy treatments of tumors. material and methods: in this cross-over study, a total of 50 female balb/c mice were tumorized via homograft. after about 2 weeks, magnetic pulses (3.5 t, 1 hz, 8 square-wave/160 μs) were applied to tumor-bearing mice 3 min after intratumoral blm solution injection. tumor volume was measured every 48 h during 22 days. results: the results showed that the difference between the blm plus 3.5 t mf group versus the sham control or sham mf groups was significant. uptake of blm molecules by tumoral cells in the blm plus 3.5 t mf group versus the blm control group was 7- folds higher that this result was statistically insignificant (p<0.05, sem=266.8676, analysis of variance). conclusion: significant cell permeabilization to blm requires greater mf strength or exposure time. further investigation is necessary.