Surgical Drain Fluid Biomarker Analysis for Disease Assessment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for assessing disease primarily rely on tumor samples, sentinel lymph glands, or blood, lacking the depth and breadth of diagnostic information provided by surgical drainage fluid, which is typically considered medical waste.
Innovation Solution
Utilizing surgical drainage fluid as a diagnostic tool to track disease biomarkers over time, analyzing differences in biomarker presence, accumulation, and composition between multiple samples to assess disease progression, metastasis, and prognosis, including the use of nucleic acids, proteins, and other indicators.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of substance
If drain fluid is discarded as medical waste, then loss of substance is minimized, but loss of diagnostic information occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent converts what was previously considered waste (drain fluid) into a valuable diagnostic resource. By analyzing biomarkers in the drain fluid, the invention transforms a discarded substance into a source of critical diagnostic and prognostic information about disease progression and metastasis
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of simply discarding the drain fluid, the invention recovers valuable diagnostic information from it. The method extracts and analyzes biomarkers, tumor cells, and other indicators from the fluid that would otherwise be lost, thereby recovering potential diagnostic value from waste material
2Measurement precision
If traditional diagnostic methods using tumor samples, sentinel lymph glands, or blood are used, then diagnostic procedures are simple, but measurement precision and diagnostic depth are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the drain fluid serve multiple diagnostic functions. A single sample of drain fluid can provide information about disease progression, metastasis risk, treatment response, and prognosis, replacing the need for multiple separate diagnostic procedures and samples
Solution Approach 2:
The drain fluid acts as an intermediary between the primary tumor and distant metastatic sites. By analyzing this intermediate fluid, the invention can detect disease progression and metastatic potential earlier and more accurately than by examining distant organs directly
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention provides methods for using surgical drainage waste fluid as a means for diagnosing disease, assessing disease progression, predicting metastatic disease, assessing cancer metastasis, disease staging, molecular staging, and assessing metastatic disease. During surgery, suction is used to drain fluids such as blood, tissue fluids, and other bodily fluids away from the surgery site. The suction drainage fluid waste, also called drain fluid, is removed from the patient during the surgical procedure. Because surgical drain fluid is typically viewed as something that is not useful, it is disregarded and thrown away during the surgery. Instead, the invention provides that drain fluid, which is mostly lymphatic fluid and interstitial fluid, is diagnostically rich and contains important information for assessing, diagnosing, and treating disease. The methods of the invention use this waste fluid for the valuable data it contains. Therefore, while a patient is already undergoing surgery for a medical condition, the waste drain fluid is sampled and analyzed for biomarkers or other molecular indicia of disease.