Patent ID: 8163151

Claim:
A method of diagnosing a patient for the presence or absence of a vWF abnormality and/or disease by analyzing the electrophoretic mobility distribution of von Willebrand factor (vWF) multimers in a biological sample obtained from the patient, comprising: a) obtaining a biological sample comprising a plurality of vWF multimers from a patient; b) electrophoretically separating said vWF multimers by electrophoretic mobility in said sample medium by placing said sample medium into a flow-through sample chamber and subjecting said sample medium in said flow-through sample chamber to an electric field to provide separated vWF multimers; c) exposing said separated vWF multimers in said sample medium in said flow-through sample chamber to a light source to produce scattered light; d) detecting said scattered light; e) determining the electrophoretic mobility distribution of said separated vWF multimers from said detected scattered light, and f) using the information from the electrophoretic mobility distribution to diagnose the presence or absence of a vWF abnormality or disease, wherein the presence or absence of a vWF abnormality or disease is identified by comparing said electrophoretic mobility distribution to parameters corresponding to a set of vWF abnormalities and/or diseases.