Hitachi, Ltd.

Other

Masaaki Kurimura

Ryohei Yabe

Shinichi Sakuraba

Hajime Matsushita

Masaaki Hanawa

Isao Shindo

Toshiaki Yokobayashi

Yasuaki Kojima

A liquid sample is sucked from a staining vessel by a first sampling nozzle and the liquid sample is discharged into a flow cell unit, the liquid sample being supplied to the staining vessel by a second sampling nozzle so as to be stained in the staining vessel in advance. When the liquid sample is being discharged through the first sampling nozzle, a sheath liquid is supplied to a flow cell so that the sheath liquid flows with the liquid sample included therein. In this condition, passage of particles in the flow cell is detected by an optical system for detection at a still frame image pick-up position, and after a predetermined delay time based on the detection, strobe light is radiated so as to pick up a still frame image due to the scattered light to thereby perform classification and counting of the particles. Foreign matter in the liquid sample discharged from the sampling nozzle is caught by a filter and exhausted by the sheath liquid which overflows to the upper portion of the filter after completion of discharge of the liquid sample from the sampling nozzle. Bubbles in the flow cell are removed through an air vent and bubbles in the sheath liquid are removed after once reserved in an air vent chamber. Thus, foreign matter/bubbles in the liquid sample/sheath liquid can be prevented from entering the flow cell unit to make it possible to perform testing with high accuracy without lowering testing efficiency.

Intra-liquid particle classification apparatus using light scattering

In a stained particle analyzing method and apparatus for staining a test sample containing suspended particles, shooting an image of the stained sample, and classifying the particles and computing the density from the shot image of the sample, the sample, which may not be analyzed precisely, is detected before the start of an image analyzing process. Only the sample, which will be analyzed precisely, is stained and subjected to the image analysis. Color information of the sample before the staining is detected and stored. Color information of an image of the sample shot after the staining is compensated based on the color information of the sample detected before the staining. The sort and density of the particles are classified and computed on the basis of the image after the color compensation.

Method and apparatus for analyzing stained particles

A stain discriminating apparatus in which light rays having at least light component having a wavelength in a predetermined range are projected to a cell sample to discriminate the staining method by which the cell sample has been stained on the basis of the light intensity of the light component transmitted through the sample and having the wavelength (530 nm) in the predetermined range. An automatic cell sample classifying apparatus in which a plurality of cell sample slides are sequentially fed to the stain discriminating apparatus is used to determine the staining method by which the cell samples have been stained, respectively. One of the examination/classification programs previously stored in a memory is read out according to the staining method as discriminated and the cell samples are processed in accordance with the program as read out.

Automatic cell sample classifying apparatus

A slide specimen extracted from a cassette at a receiving position is carried to a holding position for waiting by a carrier along a carrying pass. While at the holding position, a previously inspected specimen that has been observed through a microscope is placed on the carrying pass at a specimen replacing position. Thereafter the specimen that has been held at the holding position is carried to the replacing position by the carrier, while at the same time the specimen that has just been placed at the replacing position is moved along the carrying pass by the carrier. The specimen then placed in the replacing position is picked up by a pair of holding arms and carried to an observing position of the microscope. The specimen is retained by vacuum adsorption and by specimen retainers which resiliently hold it by means of springs in contact with the vacuum adsorption surface. In the meantime, the specimen that has already been observed and shifted toward the specimen feeder is moved the rest of the way to the specimen feeder and replaced into the original cassette from which it was extracted. After replacing the specimen, a new specimen is extracted and carried to the holding position as the process is repeated until all of the slide specimens have been observed.

Apparatus and method for specimen inspection

An automatic cell analyzing system for automatically analyzing a large number of sample slides prepared for cellular samples. The sample slides include a plurality of sample slide sets each prepared by different staining methods for each sample. Cellular images obtained by observing through a microscope the numerous sample slides picked out sequentially are analyzed by an image fetching/feature extracting circuit, the resulting morphological features of the individual cells being converted into digital information to be stored. Upon completion of the analysis for all the sample slides, the digital information obtained from the sample slide is synthetically examined for each associated sample to thereby classify the sample into one of predetermined categories.

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Ibaraki, Japan

Masaaki Kurimura