title: Microscopic histological characteristics of soft tissue sarcomas: analysis of tissue features and electrical resistance.
abstract: Tissue electrical conductivity is correlated with tissue characteristics. In this work, some soft tissue sarcomas (STS) excised from patients have been evaluated in terms of histological characteristics (cell size and density) and electrical resistance. The electrical resistance has been measured using the ex vivo study on soft tissue tumors electrical characteristics (ESTTE) protocol proposed by the authors in order to study electrical resistance of surgical samples excised by patients in a fixed measurement setup. The measurement setup includes a voltage pulse generator (700 V, 100 µs long at 5 kHz, period 200 µs) and an electrode with 7 needles, 20 mm-long, with the same distance arranged in a fixed hexagonal geometry. In the ESTTE protocol, the same voltage pulse sequence is applied to each different tumor mass and the corresponding resistance has been evaluated from voltage and current recorded by the equipment. For each tumor mass, a histological sample of the volume treated by means of voltage pulses has been taken for histological analysis. Each mass has been studied in order to identify the sarcoma type. For each histological sample, an image at 20× or 40× of magnification was acquired. In this work, the electrical resistance measured for each tumor has been correlated with tissue characteristics like the type, size and density of cells. This work presents a preliminary study to explore possible correlations between tissue characteristics and electrical resistance of STS. These results can be helpful to adjust the pulse voltage intensity in order to improve the electrochemotherapy efficacy on some histotype of STS.
authors.affiliation: Melanoma and Sarcoma Pathology Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV IRCCS, Via Gattamelata, 64, 35128, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Tosi
authors.affiliation: Sarcoma and Melanoma Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV IRCCS, Via Gattamelata, 64, 35128, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Campana
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Via Gradenigo, 6/a, 35131, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dughiero
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Via Gradenigo, 6/a, 35131, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Forzan
authors.affiliation: Sarcoma and Melanoma Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV IRCCS, Via Gattamelata, 64, 35128, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rastrelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Via Gradenigo, 6/a, 35131, Padua, Italy. elisabetta.sieni@unipd.it.
authors.forename: E
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5297-0576
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sieni
authors.affiliation: Melanoma and Sarcoma Pathology Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV IRCCS, Via Gattamelata, 64, 35128, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Rossi
mesh_terms: D017097:Electric Impedance; D006801:Humans; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology
keywords: Electrical resistance; Electroporation; Histology; Soft tissue Sarcoma