Abstract
Implantation of neural progenitor cells into the central nervous system has attracted strong interest for treatment of a variety of pathologies. For example, the replacement of dopamine-producing (DA) 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 90% of implanted cells survive longer than 24 - 48 hours following the implantation procedure. However, it is unknown if these cells were viable upon delivery, or if they were affected by other factors such as brain pathology or an immune response. An instrumented cell-delivery catheter has been developed to assist in answering these questions by facilitating quantification and monitoring of the viability of the cells delivered. The catheter uses a fiber optic probe to perform flourescence-based cytometric measurments on cells exiting the port at the catheter tip. The current implementation of this design is on a 3.2 mm diameter catheter with 245 micrometer diameter optical fibers. Results of fluorescence testing data are presented and show that the device can characterize the quantity of cell densities ranging from 60,000 cells/ml to 600,000 cells/ml with a coefficient of determination of 0.93.