Blood and cell analysis using an imaging flow cytometer

Patent Number: 7,522,758

This patent covers methods of diagnosing diseases based on flow cytometric profile.  Although the majority of the invention is directed towards chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the first claim is rather broad:

"A method for detecting a disease condition from images collected from a population of cells, comprising the steps of: (a) spectrally dispersing light from the population of cells into a plurality of light beams having different spectral content, for imaging the population of cells to collect image data, such that a plurality of images for each cell are simultaneously separately formed and collected, each of the plurality of images being formed from a different one of the plurality of light beams, the plurality of images comprising at least one of the following two types of images: (i)multispectral images; and (ii)multimodal images; and (b) analyzing the image data collected to detect the disease condition in a subpopulation of the cells."

Does this cover every disease?

This patent, for whatever reason, reminds us of #7,279,289.

View this patent on the USPTO website.