Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a common
oral cancer of the head and neck, which causes tremendous physical and mental
pain to people. Traditional
chemotherapy usually results in drug resistance and side effects, affecting the
therapy process. In this study, a self-powered electrical impulse
chemotherapy (EIC) method based on a portable triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was established for OSCC
therapy. A common chemotherapeutic drug,
doxorubicin (DOX), was used in the experiment. The TENG designed with zigzag structure had a small size of 6 cm × 6 cm, which could controllably generate the fixed output of 200 V, 400 V and 600 V. The electrical impulses generated by the TENG increased the cell endocytosis of DOX remarkably. Besides, a simply and ingeniously designed microneedle
electrode increased the intensity of electric field (EF) between two adjacent microneedle
tips compared with the most used planar interdigital
electrode at the same height, which was more suitable for three-dimensional (3D) cells or tissues. Based on the TENG, microneedle
electrode and DOX, the self-powered EIC system demonstrated a maximal apoptotic cell ratio of 22.47% and a minimum relative 3D multicellular
tumor sphere (MCTS) volume of 160% with the drug dosage of 1 μg mL-1.