Cytometric catheter for neurosurgical applications

Abstract

Implantation of neural progenitor cells into the central nervous system has attracted strong interest for treatment of a variety of pathologies. The replacement of dopamine-producing neural cells in the brain appears promising for the treatment of patients affected by Parkinson's disease. Previous studies of cell replacement strategies have shown that less than 10% of implanted cells were viable 24–48 hours following implantation. We present the design of an instrumented cell-delivery catheter that has been developed to facilitate the quantification of the cells delivered and determination of viability. The catheter uses a fibre optic probe to perform fluorescence-based cytometric measurements on cells exiting the port at the catheter tip. Results of fluorescence testing data are presented and show that the device can characterize the quantity of cell densities ranging from 60 000 to 600 000 cells ml⁻¹ with a coefficient of determination of 0.93 (p < 0.05, n = 6).

Keywords:

• Flow cytometry
• Cell therapy
• Neurocatheter
• Positive pressure infusion
• Fibre optics

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr John Kucharczyk and Dr Michael Bronskill of NexGen Medical Systems for assisting with supplying the neurosurgical catheters to which the custom-made tips were attached, and for several useful discussions. Catheter instrumentation and testing research was sponsored by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. Research in GFP cell transfection and neural catheter design was funded in part by the Kopf Family Foundation and NexGen Medical Systems at the University of Virginia, and the Cullather, Hord and Haffner Funds of the MCV Foundation at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Declaration of interest: Authors Gillies, Broaddus and Fillmore have a financial interest in the company (NexGen Medical Systems) that is the commercial licensee for the technology. Authors Gillies, Broaddus, Fillmore, Allison and Evans may receive royalties from the license agreement between their institutions and the licensee company (NexGen Medical Systems).