Automated Analyser - Routine Biochemistry Analysers

Routine Biochemistry Analysers

These are machines that process a large portion of the samples going into a hospital or private medical laboratory. Automation of the testing process has reduced testing time for many analytes from days to minutes. The history of discrete sample analysis for the clinical laboratory began with the introduction of the "Robot Chemist" invented by Hans Baruch and introduced commercially in 1959.

AutoAnalyzer is an automated analyzer using a special flow technique named "continuous flow analysis (CFA)", invented in 1957 by Leonard Skeggs, PhD and first made by the Technicon Corporation. The first applications were for clinical (medical) analysis. The AutoAnalyzer profoundly changed the character of the chemical testing laboratory by allowing significant increases in the numbers of samples that could be processed. The design based on separating a continuously flowing stream with air bubbles largely reduced slow, clumsy, and error prone manual methods of analysis.

The types of tests required include enzyme levels (such as many of the liver function tests), ion levels (e.g. sodium and potassium), and other tell-tale chemicals (such as glucose, serum albumin, or creatinine).

Simple ions are often measured with ion selective electrodes, which let one type of ion through, and measure voltage differences. Enzymes may be measured by the rate they change one coloured substance to another; in these tests, the results for enzymes are given as an activity, not as a concentration of the enzyme. Other tests use colorimetric changes to determine the concentration of the chemical in question. Turbidity may also be measured.