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US 4,374,644 AGranted
Blood cell volume monitoring
AssigneeCoulter Electronics, Inc.
InventorDouglas Armstrong
Life of this patent
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Abstract
By subjecting cells, such as red blood cells, to a hypotonic solution or a solution having a lytic agent, the cells will rapidly attain a change in volume and electrical resistance parameters, which change is measured as a function of time, for example, by a Coulter Counter.RTM. particle measuring instrument. The relationship between the change in the cell resistance or cell volume and the time of immersion in the volume changing solution provides a discriminator between a normality, different diseases, and certain inherited differences.
Claims13
A method of testing cells comprising the steps of:
- forming a mixture of at least one portion of a cell sample with a cell volume increasing solution having a predetermined, substantially unchanging composition, the cells of said cell sample each having an original volume;
- causing the cells to reside in said mixture for at least a predetermined duration during which the cells attain a change increase in their volume as compared to their original volume, the amount of said change depending upon the time of immersion of the cells in said cell volume increasing solution and the innate and acquired properties of each cell;
- measuring the change of volume of the cells as a function of time;
- and
- employing said measured differences in cell volume to define data which is capable of being compared with cell volume data representative of a known health or physiological condition.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.