Patent ID: 7459143

Claim:
A method for detecting a blood clot in a human patient, said method comprising: (a) introducing into said patient a conjugate under conditions whereby said conjugate disseminates through the circulatory system, wherein said conjugate comprises an imaging tag selected from the group consisting of 99m Tc, 18 F, 64 CU, 67 Ga, 68 Ga, 77 Br, 97 Ru, 111 In, 123 I, 124 I, 131 I and 188 Re, and a deimmunized antibody specific for an epitope on human D-dimer which recognizes cross-linked fibrin but not fibrinogen, wherein the antibody comprises a combination of an H and an L chain v-domain comprising a combination of amino acid sequences selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:1/SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:2/SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:3/SEQ ID NO:4, SEQ ID NO:1/SEQ ID NO:6, SEQ ID NO:2/SEQ ID No:6, SEQ ID NO:2/SEQ ID NO:5, SEQ ID NO:3/SEQ ID NO:5, SEQ ID NO:3/SEQ ID NO:6, and SEQ ID NO: 1/SEQ ID NO:5; and (b) subjecting said patient to a planar or computer assisted tomographic nuclear medicine scan to visualize a clot if present.