Abbott Laboratories Corporation

Aloka Co., Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitomi Katagi

Masaaki Takeda

Yuko Kato

Junichi Kawanabe

Gregory A Bielarczyk

Rosie L Magee

Brent A Pelletier

Haruki Shimokawabe

A dispensing unit that sucks and discharges a blood specimen via a nozzle. A liquid level-measuring unit that measures the liquid level height. A serum volume-estimating unit that estimates the volume of the serum separated in the blood specimen, on the basis of the total blood volume, said total blood volume corresponding to the volume of the blood specimen and having been derived from the liquid level height, and a hematocrit value. A residual volume-estimating unit that calculates the volume of the serum remaining after suction, on the basis of the serum volume estimated by the serum volume-estimating unit and the volume of the serum that is going to be sucked by the dispensing unit. A controller that controls the suction procedure of the dispensing unit so that the estimated residual volume is not less than the desired volume of the serum to be left in the blood collection tube.

Specimen processor

A sample pretreatment system is provided with a pipettig table. On the pipetting table, there are provided on its front side a normal area in which a plurality of normal secondary sample racks are placed and on its back side an urgent area in which a plurality of urgent secondary sample racks are placed. Each of the normal secondary sample racks holds a plurality of normal secondary sample containers and each of the urgent secondary sample rack holds a plurality of urgent secondary sample containers . In a normal pipetting mode, a sample is pipetted from a normal source sample container to the normal secondary sample containers , and in an urgent mode, a sample is pipetted from a source sample container to the urgent secondary sample containers . The urgent secondary sample rack is formed into a portable type and has a size smaller than the normal secondary sample rack . According to this sample pretreatment system, secondary sample containers to which an urgent source sample has been pipetted can be located easily.

Growing community of inventors

Mitaka, Japan

Hitomi Katagi