Method for diagnostically imaging lesions in the peripheral nervous system
OwnerSam Popinchalkinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An improved method for diagnosing and characterizing peripheral nerve lesions to permit early identification and characterization of peripheral nerve injuries that will require surgical intervention.
Claims20
A method to characterize peripheral nerve lesions by detecting blood-nerve barrier permeability, the method including the steps of:
- introducing a chemical agent to a peripheral nerve having a blood-nerve barrier to characterize peripheral nerve lesions, the chemical agent operable to interact with an epitope within the blood-nerve barrier,
- detecting blood-nerve barrier permeability by analyzing the peripheral nerve to detect an amount of the chemical agent at a site of the blood-nerve barrier permeability, the blood-nerve barrier permeability caused by a lesion,
- wherein,
- the chemical agent (i) does not interact with the epitope unless the blood-nerve barrier is permeable and allows the epitope to be exposed to the chemical agent, and (ii) is operable to localize at the site of the blood-nerve barrier permeability, and
- the method does not include modification of the blood-nerve barrier permeability.
A method to diagnose a nerve injury using a chemical agent having a label by detecting permeability of a blood-nerve barrier of a peripheral nerve, the method including the steps of:
- introducing the chemical agent having the label to the blood-nerve barrier, the chemical agent operable to bind to an epitope exposed at a permeable site of the blood-nerve barrier;
- and
- detecting blood-nerve barrier permeability by imaging the peripheral nerve using magnetic resonance imaging to determine a presence of the chemical agent at the permeable site of the blood-nerve barrier, the blood-nerve barrier permeability caused by an injury,
- wherein,
- the label is (i) attached to the chemical agent, (ii) a contrast agent, and (iii) operable to localize and be detected at peripheral nerve injury sites that demonstrate blood-nerve barrier permeability via the magnetic resonance imaging.
In a peripheral nerve having connective tissue layers comprising a blood-nerve barrier that normally protects an epitope within the blood-nerve barrier from interaction with a chemical agent outside the blood-nerve barrier, a method for distinguishing peripheral nerve lesions in which the blood-nerve barrier remains intact from other peripheral nerve lesions in which the blood-nerve barrier has been disrupted to become permeable, the method comprising the steps of:
- providing a quantity of the chemical agent that normally does not cross an intact blood-nerve barrier of the peripheral nerve, the chemical agent operable to interact with the epitope within the blood-nerve barrier if the blood-nerve barrier has been disrupted to become permeable thereby permitting the chemical to cross the blood-nerve barrier, the chemical agent operable to localize at a site where the blood-nerve barrier has become permeable;
- introducing the chemical agent to the blood-nerve barrier;
- allowing the chemical agent to cross the blood-nerve barrier at a peripheral nerve site where the blood-nerve barrier has become permeable and allowing the chemical agent to bind with the epitope at the peripheral nerve site;
- and
- detecting an amount of the chemical agent at the peripheral nerve site to characterize severity of a peripheral nerve lesion.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.