How the 2,821 publications in the oncology corpus are distributed across 22 application areas and five study-type bands. The map shows the publication volume in an area and the distribution of study types; it does not grade clinical effectiveness, evidence quality or treatment recommendation, and it does not indicate treatment suitability for any individual patient.
“Clinical publication” covers primary clinical studies, case series and case reports, 31% of the oncology corpus. 322 registry records come from a ClinicalTrials.gov export and 65 from other registries; a record count is not a study count. What each figure counts is set out under How to Read the Numbers at the foot of the page.
Rows are application areas, columns are study-type bands; bubble area is proportional to the publication count. 22 areas, sorted by clinical publication volume. The ratio beside a badge is the number of records entering the threshold over the total in the area; for areas that are not human oncology indications the second line names the kind of area rather than the tissue group.
Each area is counted at its electrochemotherapy literature volume; where there are no electrochemotherapy records the first scored method is used. The colours represent the publication volume category only; they indicate no degree of effectiveness, recommendation or success. The tier thresholds: thresholds behind the area badges.
| Application area | RCT · review · guideline | Clinical study | Case series · report | Preclinical | Review · technical · other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pancreatic CancerDeep Organ TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 3/34 recordsIRE: High clinical publication volumethreshold 55/229 records | 24 | 111 | 19 | 60 | 60 | 274 |
| Prostate & Urological TumoursUrogynaecological TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 2/11 recordsIRE: High clinical publication volumethreshold 37/117 records | 21 | 60 | 13 | 31 | 27 | 152 |
| General Principles & BiophysicsBasic science, method and deviceECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 8/245 recordsIRE: Predominantly preclinical literaturethreshold 15/211 records | 18 | 48 | 5 | 671 | 226 | 968 |
| Skin & Cutaneous TumoursSkin & Superficial TumoursECT: High clinical publication volumethreshold 27/173 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 1/5 records | 16 | 72 | 51 | 29 | 42 | 210 |
| Liver TumoursDeep Organ TumoursECT: Limited clinical publication volumethreshold 13/47 recordsIRE: High clinical publication volumethreshold 60/203 records | 14 | 91 | 29 | 114 | 43 | 291 |
| Malignant MelanomaSkin & Superficial TumoursECT: Limited clinical publication volumethreshold 18/124 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/6 records | 8 | 51 | 25 | 75 | 34 | 193 |
| Head & Neck TumoursHead, Neck & OrbitECT: Limited clinical publication volumethreshold 12/63 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/6 records | 7 | 27 | 15 | 11 | 17 | 77 |
| Vascular MalformationsBenign clinical applicationECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 2/7 records | 6 | 16 | 9 | 0 | 7 | 38 |
| Vulvar CancerUrogynaecological TumoursECT: Limited clinical publication volumethreshold 10/29 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/1 records | 3 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 31 |
| Colorectal CancerDeep Organ TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 4/24 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/8 records | 3 | 7 | 7 | 26 | 7 | 50 |
| Breast CancerDeep Organ TumoursECT: Limited clinical publication volumethreshold 10/87 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 1/8 records | 2 | 35 | 13 | 53 | 17 | 120 |
| Kaposi SarcomaSkin & Superficial TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 4/22 records | 2 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 24 |
| CholangiocarcinomaDeep Organ TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/4 recordsIRE: Limited clinical publication volumethreshold 7/17 records | 2 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 25 |
| Devices & Clinical TrialsBasic science, method and deviceECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/4 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/5 records | 2 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 21 | 39 |
| Electrochemotherapy in Metastatic DiseaseSpecial IndicationsECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/13 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/7 records | 1 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 23 |
| Oesophageal & Upper Gastrointestinal TumoursDeep Organ TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 1/2 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/1 records | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| Veterinary OncologyVeterinary oncologyECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 2/122 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/4 records | 1 | 0 | 27 | 107 | 23 | 158 |
| Bone & Soft Tissue SarcomasMusculoskeletal & CNSECT: Limited clinical publication volumethreshold 7/39 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 3/13 records | 0 | 11 | 14 | 27 | 12 | 64 |
| Lung & Peribronchial TumoursDeep Organ TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 1/4 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 2/11 records | 0 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 2 | 18 |
| Brain TumoursMusculoskeletal & CNSECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 1/7 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 2/30 records | 0 | 0 | 2 | 38 | 7 | 47 |
| Endometrial CancerUrogynaecological TumoursIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/2 records | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Ovarian TumoursUrogynaecological TumoursECT: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 0/7 recordsIRE: Exploratory / low-volume literaturethreshold 1/2 records | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 10 |
Bubble size, publication count: 125100671
Study-type band, count in the corpus: RCT · review · guideline 131Clinical study 579Case series · report 254Preclinical 1,293Review · technical · other 564
These 131 records are selected by publication type: randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews or meta-analyses, guidelines and consensus documents. Publication type alone does not mean clinical outcome. 6 study protocols that report no results yet and 3 conference abstract are not in the list below (they remain searchable in the library); in 12 of the 122 listed articles electroporation is background rather than the intervention under study. Patient numbers, response, survival and risk-of-bias appraisal do not appear in this portal. Newest first; click a title for the citation and full abstract.
General Principles & Biophysics · ECT
Background Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a nonthermal locoregional treatment that enhances cytotoxic drug uptake through reversible electroporation and is increasingly used across different…
Vascular Malformations · Electrosclerotherapy
Bleomycin electrosclerotherapy (BEST) is an emerging, minimally invasive treatment for treating slow-flow vascular malformations. Following intralesional administration of bleomycin…
Vascular Malformations · Electrosclerotherapy
Purpose: To review the available evidence on the effectiveness and safety of bleomycin electrosclerotherapy (BEST) for slow-flow vascular malformations. Materials and methods: A systematic…
General Principles & Biophysics · ECT
Objectives: To systematically review the available evidence on electrochemotherapy (ECT) in pediatric patients, focusing on indications, treatment parameters, efficacy, and safety…
Liver Tumours · IRE
The aim of this study was to systematically pool all direct comparative evidence from two-arm studies comparing irreversible electroporation (IRE) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for…
Pancreatic Cancer · IRE
Objective The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the efficacy and safety of percutaneous irreversible electroporation combined with immunotherapy compared with irreversible…
Liver Tumours · Undetermined
The new therapeutic options now available for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have made their assessment more complex, especially due to the different stages of liver cirrhosis…
Cholangiocarcinoma · Other EP
Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is the second most common primary liver cancer and is being diagnosed with increasing frequency worldwide. We performed a systematic review on radiofrequency (RFA)…
Pancreatic Cancer · ECT
Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most difficult cancers to treat, with a dismal 5-year survival rate of only 8-10%. This challenging prognosis highlights…
Malignant Melanoma · ECT
Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a locoregional cancer treatment primarily used in the palliative management of cutaneous metastases from malignant melanoma. However, its clinical…
Liver Tumours · IRE
Background: Locoregional treatments for early-stage unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are widely used, with irreversible electroporation (IRE) and transarterial chemoembolization…
Breast Cancer · ECT
Background: Skin metastases occur in 5% - 30% of breast cancer patients, highlighting the need for effective treatments. Electrochemotherapy, which combines electric pulses with…
This shows publication volume and the distribution of study types; it does not grade clinical effectiveness, evidence quality or treatment recommendation.
| Indication | ECT publication records | IRE publication records | Total electroporation | Primary human clinical | RCT | Systematic review / meta-analysis | Guideline / consensus | Preclinical | Publication years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liver Tumours | 47 | 203 | 291 | 121 | 2 | 10 | 2 | 114 | 1997–2026 |
| Pancreatic Cancer | 34 | 229 | 274 | 132 | 6 | 15 | 3 | 60 | 1997–2026 |
| Skin & Cutaneous Tumours | 173 | 5 | 210 | 121 | 3 | 11 | 2 | 29 | 1996–2026 |
| Malignant Melanoma | 124 | 6 | 193 | 78 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 75 | 1995–2026 |
| Prostate & Urological Tumours | 11 | 117 | 152 | 79 | 8 | 12 | 1 | 31 | 1994–2026 |
| Breast Cancer | 87 | 8 | 120 | 47 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 53 | 1991–2026 |
| Head & Neck Tumours | 63 | 6 | 77 | 44 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 11 | 1998–2026 |
| Bone & Soft Tissue Sarcomas | 39 | 13 | 64 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 1997–2026 |
| Colorectal Cancer | 24 | 8 | 50 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 26 | 1997–2026 |
| Brain Tumours | 7 | 30 | 47 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 38 | 1993–2026 |
| Vulvar Cancer | 29 | 1 | 31 | 22 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1997–2026 |
| Cholangiocarcinoma | 4 | 17 | 25 | 13 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 2012–2026 |
| Kaposi Sarcoma | 22 | 0 | 24 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2006–2025 |
| Electrochemotherapy in Metastatic Disease | 13 | 7 | 23 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1998–2026 |
| Lung & Peribronchial Tumours | 4 | 11 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 2002–2026 |
| Ovarian Tumours | 7 | 2 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 2009–2026 |
| Oesophageal & Upper Gastrointestinal Tumours | 2 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2018–2025 |
| Endometrial Cancer | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2013–2017 |
Each row breaks the oncology electroporation corpus for one human oncology indication into its components. The ECT and IRE columns count the two regimes separately; total electroporation adds calcium electroporation, gene electrotransfer and the other regimes to those two. The remaining columns are computed over the total. Primary human clinical counts primary clinical research conducted in humans (randomized, prospective, retrospective, case series, case report); reviews, meta-analyses, guidelines and preclinical studies are not in that figure. The guideline / consensus column counts only publications of that type; the direction or strength of a recommendation is not assessed, and the presence of a guideline does not mean the treatment is recommended. The figures come from publication type; patient numbers, response rates, effect sizes and risk of bias are not assessed. Basic research, veterinary and non-oncological areas are not indications and are therefore absent.
The portal is not a live literature search: it is a corpus of publications assembled at a given date and resolved to their citation data. The extended electroporation corpus was built by a broad search across many sources; it is not a systematic review, it was not conducted under a protocol such as PRISMA, and it makes no claim to cover the electroporation literature exhaustively. The data version at the foot of every page names the date it belongs to.
| Figure | What it counts | What it leaves out |
|---|---|---|
| 2,821 oncology electroporation corpus, publication records | The records included in the portal's oncology literature landscape: tumour treatment applications across 22 application areas. Every figure on an oncological indication page is computed from this scope. | The non-oncological areas: DNA Vaccination by Electroporation, Cardiac Pulsed-Field Ablation, Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Field (nsPEF) and Non-Oncological Electroporation. |
| 3,057 extended electroporation corpus, publication records | In addition to the oncology electroporation corpus, this scope also includes non-oncological and contextual electroporation literature, 26 areas in total. Sections such as cardiac PFA, non-oncological IRE and DNA vaccination by electroporation compute their figures from this scope. | Neighbouring technologies that are not electroporation, device clearances and assessment documents. |
| 863 clinical publication records | Primary clinical studies, case series and case reports as assigned by the automatic study-type classification. 814 are human, 39 animal-model and 10 carry no determined model; 770 are journal articles, the rest conference abstracts, editorials, preprints and protocols. 235 of them enter the literature volume threshold calculation. | Systematic reviews, guidelines and preclinical publications. |
| 348 records feeding the badges | Records whose classification agrees with their own text and with the external index record. Across the whole extended corpus 395 records meet the condition; the badges of the non-oncological areas are computed from the difference. | Records that conflict or carry insufficient data; they appear in the library but affect no badge. |
The literature map, the application area pages and the anatomical explorer count the oncology corpus; the research library and the mechanism cross-matrix count the extended corpus. Neighbouring technologies and clearance and assessment documents enter no publication count; they stand with their own figures on Neighbouring Technologies and Clearance and Assessment Documents.
| Field | Primary source | Fallback rule | Unassigned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Study type | PubMed publication type tags | Crossref and OpenAlex document type; then keyword rules over title and abstract | 41 |
| Model system | MeSH headings (human, animal, cell line) | Species and method expressions in title and abstract | 110 |
| Mechanism terms | Term patterns over title, abstract and opening paragraph | At most six terms per record, ranked by frequency | 431 |
All labels are automatic: first the index's own field, and in its absence a rule set over title and abstract. Unassigned records are not hidden; they appear as “Not reported” in the tables. Document type and study design are held in separate fields (the preprint of a randomised study appears as both “Preprint” and “randomised”) and the counts are taken from the study type field. Document distribution: Journal Article 2,800 · Conference Abstract 99 · Editorial / Letter 78 · Protocol 33 · Preprint 21 · Correction / Erratum 14 · Thesis 10 · Technical Document 1 · Book Chapter 1.
| Band | Study types it covers | Publications |
|---|---|---|
| RCT · review · guideline | Randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews or meta-analyses, guidelines and consensus documents | 131 |
| Clinical study | Prospective, retrospective and unspecified clinical studies | 579 |
| Case series · report | Case series and single case reports | 254 |
| Preclinical | Animal, in vitro, in silico and experimental biophysics studies | 1,293 |
| Review · technical · other | Narrative reviews, technical and device papers, editorials, conference abstracts and records without an assigned study type | 564 |
| Literature volume | Threshold |
|---|---|
| High clinical publication volume | At least 15 clinical studies or case series and at least 1 higher-order design or synthesis publication (randomized trial, systematic review or guideline) |
| Limited clinical publication volume | At least 4 clinical studies or case series |
| Predominantly preclinical literature | At least 5 preclinical publications |
| Exploratory / low-volume literature | Areas meeting none of the thresholds above |
| Set | Study types |
|---|---|
| Primary human clinical publication | Primary clinical research conducted in humans: randomized, prospective and retrospective clinical studies, case series and case reports. Reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, guidelines and preclinical studies are not in this category. |
| Clinical study or case series | Case Series, Clinical Study, Prospective Clinical Study, Randomized Clinical Trial, Retrospective Clinical Study |
| RCT / systematic review / meta-analysis / guideline-consensus record | Guideline / Consensus, Randomized Clinical Trial, Systematic Review / Meta-Analysis |
| Preclinical publication | Animal Study, Experimental Biophysics Study, In Silico / Modelling, In Vitro Study |
A badge is computed for each (method, area) pair separately: within the same indication the electrochemotherapy and irreversible electroporation literatures can be at different stages. Case reports do not count towards the thresholds, so that a single case report cannot lift an area to a higher tier. The figure of 863 “clinical publications” above does include case reports.
The corpus is a set of publications assembled through a broad literature search and filed by application area: each document corresponds to one record, its citation data resolved from external indexes and its labels assigned by rule. The source set holds 3,215 documents, of which 3,057 are counted as publications. The rest are not publications: they are neighbouring-technology records, clearance and assessment documents and manufacturer documents, and they stand with their own counts on their own pages. The search is broad but is not a systematic review and makes no claim to cover the literature exhaustively.
This is not a systematic review and was not conducted as one: there is no pre-registered protocol, no fixed search string, no locked date range and no two-reviewer screening flow. The portal therefore cannot publish a PRISMA flow diagram; doing so would describe a process that did not take place. What the search covers and what it deliberately leaves out is set out in the table below.
| Set left out of scope | Why it is not counted as a publication | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| Regulatory and grey literature | Approval documents, adverse event records, health technology assessment reports and manufacturer instructions for use. They are not peer-reviewed journal publications and therefore do not enter the publication counts; their content is the subject of the safety and regulation page. The trial registry exports also sit in this folder and feed the trials table, but they are not counted as publications. | 59 |
| Electrochemical ablation (EChT) | A separate technology that drives an electrochemical reaction in tissue with direct current; applied on its own it involves no pulse that raises membrane permeability. The set also holds studies that combine electrolysis with electroporation pulses (E²); sitting on both sides of the boundary, they stay out of the corpus and are published on the neighbouring technologies page. | 37 |
| Food, microbial and environmental PEF | Pulsed electric field in food processing, microbial control and environmental applications. This is electroporation but not a medical use, so it does not enter the portal's corpus. The publications are listed on the Neighbouring Technologies page. | 6 |
| Thermal and other ablation methods | Radiofrequency, microwave, cryoablation and focused ultrasound. Tissue death is by heat or freezing rather than membrane permeabilisation, so they do not enter the electroporation literature. The publications are listed on the Neighbouring Technologies page. | 21 |
| Intralesional chemotherapy without electroporation | Studies in which the drug is injected directly into the lesion with no electric pulse. This is the comparison ground for electrochemotherapy but is not itself electroporation. The publications are listed on the Neighbouring Technologies page. | 10 |
| Bioelectromagnetic fields | Studies of low-voltage electric and magnetic fields. No pulse exceeding the membrane permeability threshold is applied, so this is not electroporation. The publications are listed on the Neighbouring Technologies page. | 11 |
| Books | Books and book scans. They cannot be counted as individual publication records and stay outside the corpus; book chapters filed with their own citation data do enter the corpus. | 2 |
Citation data is resolved from external indexes: 2,466 records through PubMed, 481 through Crossref and 91 through Europe PMC. 3,000 records carry a DOI and 2,536 a PubMed identifier. For a further 11 records the citation is taken from the document itself, because no index held them. Every document brought in by the search corresponds to a record in the portal; no document is left without one.
Literature records are classified using automated bibliographic, rule-based and machine-assisted methods. Records are not individually subjected to human scientific review. Automated consistency checks, exception handling and record-level correction mechanisms are used to improve classification quality. Errors on individual records are to be expected, and aggregate counts carry the same margin.
For each record: whether the citation resolves in an external index; whether the study design agrees with the index publication type, with patterns in the record’s own text and with MeSH terms; whether the clinical methods (ECT, IRE, cardiac PFA, gene electrotransfer, calcium electroporation) have been confused with one another; whether the application area agrees with the terminology of the title and abstract; whether the model system conflicts with the study type or the title (phantom, in silico, simulation, ex vivo). For the randomized trials, systematic reviews and guidelines that lift an area to the top tier, the design claim must be positively confirmed by at least one source.
Each record is assigned to a single application area; a publication covering more than one indication is counted in only one of them. The assignment is made by rule during the search and compared against the external index record; unverified assignments do not enter the volume count.
The same study can enter the corpus as more than one record: a preprint and its final article, a conference version and the full publication, a translation, an article and its erratum. In the oncology corpus 55 records form 27 families, and in 15 of them the records are versions of the same study. The publication record count is 2,821; once those versions are deduplicated 2,805 independent studies remain. Every figure on these pages is a publication record count, while only one version of a family enters the threshold calculation.
It covers only the publications the search brought in and stays as it is until the corpus is refreshed. The data version at the foot of every page names the date it belongs to.
Where no abstract could be found in the indexes the text is extracted from the source PDF and can break. For 88 such records the text is not published; the citation data and source links remain. In 3 record the title stays cut short.
The registry export carries no regime distinction: the field is empty on all 322 records. Enrolment and status fields can also be stale unless they are updated in the registry.
The portal counts publications; it reports no outcomes. Patient numbers, response rates, local control, survival, safety measures, comparator arms and risk-of-bias appraisal appear on no page. How many publications an area holds says nothing about how well the treatment works.
Non-English literature, unindexed journals and studies whose full text was unavailable are systematically under-represented. This is not a systematic review protocol.
If you spot an error in a record, report it from that record's drawer in the library; the citation and identifier are added to the message automatically. For page-level errors write to info@dgmed.com.tr.
Publication span: 1986–2026 (extended electroporation corpus), 1988–2026 (oncology corpus). The datasets behind the tables on these pages can be downloaded: records, literature volume matrix, mechanism distribution, application areas, trial registry, other registries, validation ledger.
How the data inside the publications is extracted and checked
For 3,040 of the 3,057 records in the extended corpus the publication's full text has been turned into structured data: study design, patient and lesion counts, indication, device, electrodes, drug, electrical parameters, outcomes and adverse events. Every field that carries evidence is published together with the publication's own sentence; a field whose quote cannot be found in the source is not published. The portal does not assess these fields, it relays them; the publication itself is the binding source.
There is no human curation in this chain: no record is treated as correct because a person read it, and no field waits for human approval.
