Process for identifying cancerous and/or metastatic cells of a living organism
View Patent ↗A process for identifying and treating cells in a living organism. The cells are labeled, circulated within the organism, detected with an implanted detector, and then either isolated or ablated.
1. A process for identifying cancerous and/or metastatic cells of a living organism, comprising the steps of:
feeding a fluid stream comprising said cancerous and/or metastatic cells, to a first assembly comprising a reservoir, wherein said reservoir contains markers capable of labeling the cancerous and/or metastatic cells;
labeling at least a portion of said cells with said markers so as to produce labeled cells;
feeding said fluid stream comprising said labeled cells to a second assembly comprising a particle analyzer, wherein said particle analyzer comprises a stent, wherein a plurality of optical assemblies capable of emitting and detecting radiation are disposed on the inner surface of said stent; then
detecting said labeled cancerous and/or metastatic cells with said particle analyzer.
2. The process as recited in claim 1 further comprising the step of estimating the positions of said labeled cells in or downstream from the stent by means of a three-dimensional, multivariate particle velocity and location estimation algorithm.
3. The process as recited in claim 1 , wherein said particle analyzer further comprises a flow cytometer.
4. The process as recited in claim 1 , further comprising the step of stripping said markers from the labeled cells within the fluid stream after exiting the particle analyzer, so as to produce a purified fluid stream.
5. The process as recited in claim 1 , wherein said marker is a non-toxic fluorescent marker.
6. The process as recited in claim 5 , wherein said marker is green fluorescent protein.
7. The process as recited in claim 1 , wherein said first and second assemblies are implanted within said living organism.
8. A process for identifying and treating cancerous and/or metastatic cells of a living organism, comprising conducting the process of claim 1 , and further comprising ablating said labeled cells, which have been detected by the particle analyzer, with an ablation device.
9. The process as recited in claim 8 , wherein the ablation device is positioned downstream from the particle analyzer.
10. The process as recited in claim 9 , wherein the distance between the particle analyzer and the ablation device is from about 100 microns to 2 millimeters.
11. The process of claim 8 , wherein the ablation device is a part of the stent of the particle analyzer.
12. The process as recited in claim 8 , wherein the ablation device comprises a plurality of lasers.