3596 results about "Peripheral blood" patented technology

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for monitoring haemodynamic function in animals and humans during anaesthesia and surgery. During anaesthesia and surgery the subject's haemodynamic, respiratory, neuromuscular and neurological functions are monitored as indicators of the condition of the health of the subject. Commonly, variations in blood pressure are used to imply corresponding variations in cardiac output, i.e. good blood pressure equals good cardiac output. The present invention utilizes a device to monitor changes of blood flow in peripheral blood vessels of the subject as an indicator of cardiac output. This is believed to provide a much more accurate indicator.

A method of detecting the presence or absence of the fetal DNA sequence of interest in fetal DNA derived from a sample of peripheral blood obtained from a pregnant woman is described. The method involves obtaining a sample peripheral blood from a pregnant woman, treating the sample of peripheral blood such that the fetal DNA present in the fetal nucleated cells is made available for detection and detecting the presence or absence of the fetal DNA sequence of interest in the available fetal DNA. The proportion of fetal nucleated cells present in the sample of peripheral blood can be increased forming a sample enriched in fetal nucleated cells prior to the detection step. The fetal DNA sequence of interest can be detected by treating the peripheral blood sample such that fetal DNA present in the sample is made available for hybridization with a DNA probe and subsequently contacting the available fetal DNA with a DNA probe hybridizable to fetal DNA of interest under hybridization conditions. The presence or absence of hybridization between the DNA probe and the fetal DNA of interest is detected as an indication of the presence or absence of the fetal DNA of interest.

The invention provides methods for diagnosing, treating, or evaluating inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by sampling peripheral blood, serum, plasma, tissue, cerebrospinal fluid, or other bodily fluids from a human subject having a suspected diagnosis. The sample is analyzed for the presence and amount of certain cytokines, which provides the diagnosis, prognosis or evaluation of therapeutic response.

This invention relates to a method for prevention and treatment of Atherosclerosis, Peripheral Vascular Disease, Coronary Artery Disease, and age-related disorders including Osteoporosis, Arthritis, Type II Diabetes, Dementia and Alzheimer's disease in a subject comprising administering to said subject a therapeutically effective dosage of each component or combination of statins, bisphosphonates, cholesterol lowering agents or techniques, interleukin-6 inhibitor/antibody, interleukin-6 receptor inhibitor/antibody, gp130 protein inhibitor/antibody, tyrosine kinases inhibitors/antibodies, STAT transcription factors inhibitors/antibodies, altered IL-6, partial peptides of IL-6 or IL-6 receptor, or SOCS (suppressors of cytokine signaling) protein, or a functional fragment thereof, administered separately, in sequence or simultaneously. Inhibition of the signal transduction pathway for Interleukin 6 mediated inflammation is key to the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis, peripheral vascular disease, coronary artery disease, aging and age-related disorders including osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, dementia and some forms of arthritis and tumors. Inhibition of Interleukin 6 mediated inflammation may be achieved indirectly through regulation of endogenous cholesterol synthesis and isoprenoid depletion or by direct inhibition of the signal transduction pathway including interleukin-6 inhibitor/antibody, interleukin-6 receptor inhibitor/antibody, gp130 protein inhibitor/antibody, tyrosine kinases inhibitors/antibodies, STAT transcription factors inhibitors/antibodies, altered IL-6, partial peptides of IL-6 or IL-6 receptor, or SOCS (suppressors of cytokine signaling) protein, or a functional fragment thereof. Said method for prevention and treatment of said disorders is based on inhibition of Interleukin-6 inflammation through regulation of cholesterol metabolism, isoprenoid depletion and inhibition of the signal transduction pathway.

Devices and methods for performing a point of care blood, cell, and/or pathogen count or a similar blood test. Disclosed herein are systems that can be used to provide rapid, accurate, affordable laboratory-quality testing at the point of care. The systems described herein are capable of imaging and counting individual cells in a prepared cell sample (e.g., a peripheral blood smear or a blood sample prepared in a microfluidic device) or another prepared cell-containing sample without the need for a microscope or other expensive and cumbersome optics. The systems described herein are designed to eliminate or replace expensive, centralized clinical testing equipment and technical personnel. Such systems may include automated data reporting and decision support.

Methods of ex-vivo expansion of fetal and/or adult progenitor, and umbilical cord blood, bone marrow or peripheral blood derived stem cells in bioreactors for bone marrow transplantation, transfusion medicine, regenerative medicine and gene therapy.

A method for the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of lung cancer by detecting at least one microRNA in peripheral blood is disclosed.

A cancer test having prognostic utility in predicting time to disease progression, overall survival, and response to therapy in patients with MBC based upon the presence and number of CTC's. The Cell Spotter® System is used to enumerate CTC's in blood. The system immunomagnetically concentrates epithelial cells, fluorescently labels the cells and identifies and quantifies CTC's. The absolute number of CTC's detected in the peripheral blood tumor load is, in part, a factor in prediction of survival, time to progression, and response to therapy. The mean time to survival of patients depended upon a threshold number of 5 CTC's per 7.5 ml of blood. Detection of CTC's in metastatic cancer represents a novel prognostic factor in patients with metastatic cancers, suggests a biological role for the presence of tumor cells in the blood, and indicates that the detection of CTC's could be considered an appropriate surrogate marker for prospective therapeutic clinical trials.

A blood pressure monitoring system includes a blood pressure measurement device for measuring blood pressure using a cuff, a memory for storing an externally inputted pulse wave propagation time fluctuation threshold, a time interval detection reference point detection section for detecting a time interval detection reference point in a pulse wave on the side of aortae of a living organism, a pulse wave detection section for detecting a pulse wave on the side of peripheral blood vessels appearing with a time lag with respect to the pulse wave on the side of aortae, a pulse wave propagation time measurement section for measuring a pulse wave propagation time based on respective detected outputs from the time interval detection reference point detection section and the pulse wave detection section, an operation device for calculating a pulse wave propagation fluctuation from two measured pulse wave propagation times, a judgment device for judging whether or not the calculated pulse wave propagation time fluctuation exceeds the pulse wave propagation time fluctuation threshold read from the memory, and a control device for controlling the blood pressure measurement device based on an output of the judgment device so that the blood pressure of a subject is measured using the cuff.

A process is provided for expanding the population of endothelial cells obtained from peripheral blood which can be transformed with a vector comprising a DNA sequence encoding a preselected bioactive polypeptide. The resulting transgenic endothelial cells are useful to biocompatibilize implantable medical devices or can be used directly, as for gene therapy.

The invention relates to methods, apparatus, articles-of-manufacture, and coded data signals for measuring cardiac output, limb blood flow, perfusion, blood pressure, artery elasticity, and cardiovascular deterioration and disease, including performing these measurements on a continuous heart beat-by-beat basis, for humans and animals. Unlike empirical methods of other noninvasive blood pressure concepts, the invention is grounded on scientifically appropriate hemodynamic principles that studies have validated as accurate, and is practical for wide clinical use. Devices constructed in accordance with the invention can be comfortably employed for numerous applications, including hospital monitoring, physician's office cardiovascular disease management and drug therapy monitoring, home monitoring, and athletic applications.

The invention may be implemented in a variety of single or multi-sensor embodiments, such as: invasive pressure cannula sensor systems; non invasive pressure transducer arrays and piezo or other strain sensing materials that are placed against the skin above arteries; “upstream” pulsing-sensors (that apply single or multi-frequency vibrations that are measured “downstream” from the first placement location); other types of plethysmographic sensors; sonic/ultrasonic/Doppler sensors; MRI blood spin magnetizer/sensors; oxygen sensors; and electrocardiographic sensors, etc.

CD20 is a transmembrane protein of the tetra-spanin family expressed on the surface of B-cells and has been found on B-cells from peripheral blood as well as lymphoid tissues. CD20 expression persists from the early pre-B cell stage until the plasma cell differentiation stage. Conversely, it is not found on hematopoietic stem cells, pro-B cells, differentiated plasma cells or non-lymphoid tissues. In addition to expression in normal B-cells, CD20 is expressed in B-cell derived malignancies such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). CD20 expressing cells are known to play a role in other diseases and disorders, including inflammation. The present invention includes anti-CD20 antibodies, forms and fragments, having superior physical and functional properties; immunoconjugates, compositions, diagnostic reagents, methods for inhibiting growth, therapeutic methods, improved antibodies and cell lines; and polynucleotides, vectors and genetic constructs encoding same.

CD20 is a transmembrane protein of the tetra-spanin family expressed on the surface of B-cells and has been found on B-cells from peripheral blood as well as lymphoid tissues. CD20 expression persists from the early pre-B cell stage until the plasma cell differentiation stage. Conversely, it is not found on hematopoietic stem cells, pro-B cells, differentiated plasma cells or non-lymphoid tissues. In addition to expression in normal B-cells, CD20 is expressed in B-cell derived malignancies such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). CD20 expressing cells are known to play a role in other diseases and disorders, including inflammation. The present invention includes anti-CD20 antibodies, forms and fragments, having superior physical and functional properties; immunoconjugates, compositions, diagnostic reagents, methods for inhibiting growth, therapeutic methods, improved antibodies and cell lines; and polynucleotides, vectors and genetic constructs encoding same.

The present invention is drawn to methods for measuring numbers, levels, and/or ratios of cells, such as lymphocytes, infiltrated into a solid tissue, such as a tumor or a tissue affected by an autoimmune disease, and to methods for making patient prognoses based on such measurements. In one aspect, methods of the invention comprise sorting lymphocytes from an accessible tissue, such as peripheral blood, into functional subsets, such as cytotoxic T cells and regulatory T cells, and generating clonotype profiles of each subset. An inaccessible disease-affected tissue is sampled and one or more clonotype profiles are generated. From the latter clonotype profiles, levels lymphocytes in each of the functional subsets are determined in the disease-affected tissue by their clonotypes, which are identified from lymphocytes sorted into subsets from the accessible tissue.

Disclosed herein are methods of depleting peripheral blood B cells in a human host comprising administering to the host an immunologically active anti-CD20 antibody in an amount effective to deplete peripheral blood B cells in the host.

The invention discloses a circulating tumor cell identification kit and a circulating tumor cell identification method. The circulating tumor cell identification kit comprises a detection probe for detecting mRNA of an epithelial cell marking gene and/or mRNA of a mesenchymal cell marking gene, wherein the epithelial cell marking gene is selected from one or more of CDH2, VIMENTIN, FN1 and AKT2. Multiple RNA probes are adopted in the identification method, specific genes of a plurality of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be marked at the same time and are divided into genes I (epithelial genes), genes II (epithelial-mesenchymal genes) and genes III (mesenchymal genes), and false positive results caused by lack of part of the specific genes of the CTCs in a process that the CTCs enter peripheral blood for circulation are reduced; the method can be finished within eight hours, and a single copied mRNA hybridization probe is combined with a corresponding fluorescent probe by virtue of a signal amplification system, so that the detection sensitivity of in-situ RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) hybridization is remarkably improved.

The invention is directed to a method for determining immunophenotypes of tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes in a solid tissue of a patient by (a) generating clonotype profiles from a sample of nucleic acid extracted from a fixed tissue sample from a solid tissue of the patient, where such tissue contains tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes; and (b) determining immunophenotypes of the tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes by (i) obtaining a sample of lymphocytes from peripheral blood of the patient; (ii) sorting the lymphocytes from peripheral blood into at least one subset based on different immunophenotypes of the lymphocytes; (iii) generating a clonotype profile for each of the at least one subset of lymphocytes; and (iv) determining immunophenotypes of lymphocytes in the fixed tissue sample by a correspondence between clonotypes of the fixed tissue sample and clonotypes of the at least one subset.

The present invention relates to a population of blood borne mammalian cells that express a unique profile of surface markers that includes certain markers typical of connective tissue fibroblasts, and are referred to herein as "blood-borne mesenchymal cells." In particular, it relates to the isolation, characterization and uses of such blood-borne mesenchymal cells. The cells of the present invention can be distinguished from peripheral blood leukocytes by their distinct size, morphology, cell surface phenotype and biologic activities, and are likewise distinguishable from connective tissue fibroblasts by other surface phenotypic markers. These cells proliferate in culture, and in vivo, as demonstrated in animal models, are capable of migrating into wound sites from the blood. Therefore, such blood-borne mesenchymal cells may have a wide range of applications, including, but not limited to, the promotion of wound healing, tissue remodeling, and for gene therapy.