A rapid method for the diagnosis of von Willebrand's disease subtypes by the clinical laboratory.

Von Willebrand's disease represents the most prevalent form of the inheritable bleeding disorders. Appropriate clinical management of these patients requires subtyping of the disease by examination of von Willebrand factor multimers following agarose gel electrophoresis of plasma. Previously described methods for the preparation of agarose gels in this application require extensive manipulation of the gel mold during pouring of the separating, stacking, and cathode portions of the agarose gel. We describe an improved gel mold design that expedites preparation of agarose gels by eliminating the need to disassemble the mold during preparation. In addition, using relatively inexpensive computer hardware and scanning densitometry, we have demonstrated the ability to both quantitate the von Willebrand factor antigen present and prepare a visual record of the multimer pattern for medical records.