Microfluidic purification and concentration of malignant pleural effusions for improved molecular and cytomorphological diagnostics.

ABSTRACT: Evaluation of pleural fluids for metastatic cells is a key component of diagnostic cytopathology. However, a large background of smaller leukocytes and/or erythrocytes can make accurate diagnosis difficult and reduce specificity in identification of mutations of interest for targeted anti-cancer therapies. Here, we describe an automated microfluidic system (Centrifuge Chip) which employs microscale vortices for the size-based isolation and concentration of cancer cells and mesothelial cells from a background of blood cells. We are able to process non-diluted pleural fluids at 6 mL/min and enrich target cells significantly over the background; we achieved improved purity in all patient samples analyzed. The resulting isolated and viable cells are readily available for immunostaining, cytolo

SUBMITTER: Che J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3810139 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature