Patent ID: 8012480

Claim:
A method of assaying a protein from cancer cells in a blood sample comprising enriching the cancer cells from the blood sample followed by lysing the enriched cells and performing on the lysed cancer cells an immunoassay capable of detecting the protein from the cancer cells; wherein the immunoassay uses electrochemiluminescence for detection the immunoassay has a sensitivity defined by being capable of quantifiably detecting the protein from thirty cancer cells per milliliter of blood or by being capable of detecting sixty-four picograms of the protein; and the protein is selected from the group consisting of epidermal growth factor receptor, excision repair cross-complementation group 1, ribonucleotide reductase subunit M1, thymidylate synthase, and beta-tubulin; and the immunoassay generates a signal proportional to the number of molecules of the protein present in the cancer cells in the blood sample.