Clinical Biochemistry

Hello everyone, this is Joash here. The lab that i am posted to right now its just a very small routine diagnostic lab that only contains 3 main disciplines, which are Biochemistry, Hematology and Microbiology. i am going to talk about Biochemistry 1st.



The analyzer that we used in our lab is the Olympus AU400

This fully automated biochemistry analyzers contains 3 major components which includes robotic arms, called probes, controlled by pressure valves, next is the a photometer that measures the light from built-in cuvettes which are held at a constant temperature and lastly the microprocessor or software package which calculates the values from the signal and then displays the data in a user-defined format. The analyzer contains 2 probes, sample and reagent probe which has good accuracy and precision. The reagent chamber is refrigerated and accommodates 72 reagent bottles and can analyze up to 46 parameters at 1 time. The STAT table is also refridgerated and it is used for emergency analysis as it can hold other analysis 1st but run the samples on the STAT table. Routine parameters include liver function tests, renal function tests, glucose tolerance tests and special parameters such as free fatty acids, HbA1c, ketone bodies and much more. This analyzer can run samples such as serum, plasma and urine.

Daily, weekly and monthly maintenance is required for this analyzer and each involves different cleaning procedures such as cleaning and rinsing the sample and reagent probes. replacing the cleaning solotions and etc. QC have to be done daily before the analysis of samples can be done. This is to ensure that the results produced are accurate and reliable at that point of time. The QC menu of the software offers LJ plots, west guard rules, etc. for user review. The data can also be stored and printed. it allows us to review day to day control to monitor the QC for each components and it will flag if the QC results are out of the +/- 2SD off the mean.

After QC had passed, only that we can run our patient samples. The blood tube that we are using is the Red clot activator blood tube as we are analyzing the serum of the blood. We will 1st have to key in the required test into the LIS system for that particular patient and paste the barcode label along the blood tube that matches the patient's particulars. Then the blood tubes are centrifuged to spin down the clotted red and white cells with serum as the supernatant and after that, they are placed into the analyzer for processing. the analyzer will read the barcode and recognize what test to do for this patient. After the test is done, the results will be transmitted to the LIS system and the report is ready to be printed and summit to the vets for review.

Regards,

Joash(0702657H)

picture taken from:http://asia.olympus-global.com/lisg/diagnostic/au400e/index.cfm