Separation of fetal cells from maternal blood
US5639669A · kind A · utility
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 7, 1995 |
| Grant date | Jun 17, 1997 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 7, 2015 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10T436/25375
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
It is often important for medical purposes to obtain nucleated fetal cells during pregnancy. For example, the procedures of amniocentesis or chrionic villae extraction are carried out for this purpose. But these methods are invasive, and carry a small but positive risk to the patient, and are complicated to perform. On the other hand, the purpose of my invention is to obtain nucleated fetal cells (fetal nucleated reticulocytes) from maternal blood, which eliminates the need for invasive methods. There are a small number of nucleated fetal red blood cells (reticulocytes) in maternal blood and my invention is a method and apparatus for separating these fetal cells from maternal blood. Several methods have previously been proposed, involving fluorescent antibody antigen reactions (immunofluorescence), other antibody-antigen means, that depend on the difference between the cell walls of maternal and fetal blood cells, but all of these methods have been unsatisfactory because they have proved to be unreliable and expensive, and to involve some final additional technique to isolate the cells, such as flow cytometry. On the other hand, my invention does not use antibody-antigen means, but…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.