Patent ID: 8486656

Claim:
A method of prognosing a patient's response to a cancer therapy, the method comprising the steps of: a) prior to the therapy, contacting an unfixed sample of cells from the patient's tissue or organ being treated for the cancer with a solution of 5, 10, 15, 20-Tetrakis (Carboxyphenyl) Porphine (TCPP) under conditions permitting binding of the TCPP to components of abnormal precancerous or cancerous cells, if any are present; b) detecting TCPP fluorescence in the sample, the presence of TCPP fluorescence being indicative that the sample contains dysplastic or carcinomic cells; c) separating the cells by fluorescence flow cytometry into low or non-fluorescent and high fluorescent populations, the low or non-fluorescent populations being normal or metaplastic, the high-fluorescent population being dysplastic or carcinomic; d) treating the cell populations with a potential cancer therapeutic agent in vitro; and e) observing the effect of the agent on each of the two cell populations, an observation that the agent is exerting its desired negative effect on the dysplastic or carcinomic cells population and not, or in a reduced amount, on the normal cell population being prognostic of the patient's response to the cancer therapy.