JPH0437384B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention belongs to the field of medical devices for diagnosis,
The present invention relates to a re-measurement method when an abnormality occurs in the chemical analysis data of a specimen in an automatic chemical analyzer.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, in automatic chemical analyzers, it has often occurred that correct analysis results cannot be obtained and re-measurement must be performed. There are various reasons why correct analysis results may not be obtained, but for example, when measuring absorbance with an automatic chemical analyzer, there are many reasons such as high concentration, high units, or color of the sample, the effect of air bubbles on the measurement system, Possible causes include dirt in the reaction tube. In such cases, for example, if the sample is determined to have a high concentration, dilute the sample and re-measure it; if it is due to an accident such as the generation of air bubbles or dirt in the reaction tube, re-measure after removing the cause. Measurements need to be taken.
For example, if the intensity of the color development is too strong due to the high concentration of the sample and exceeds the usable range of the device, making it impossible to obtain accurate analysis results, the person performing the measurement should wash the sample with physiological saline or purified water. After diluting a certain amount, the sample was placed in a sample cup, set in an automatic chemical analyzer, and measured again.

In recent years, automated chemical analyzers have become increasingly automated, and manual intervention is being omitted.However, when a sample is displayed as a measurement error, the response to it is still largely dependent on the operator's own operations. This places a lot of burden on the measurer.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and provides a method for re-measuring a specimen that can promptly re-measure a specimen that has caused a measurement error in an automatic chemical analyzer. The purpose is to provide the following.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, a method for re-assaying a specimen according to the present invention includes a reaction line in which reaction tubes containing a specimen to be measured are arranged in a row; A dilution section attached to the reaction line, a sample unit section containing the sample, the sample from this sample unit section is aspirated and discharged to the dilution section, the diluted sample is aspirated again and separated into the reaction line. A method for re-measuring a sample in an automatic chemical analyzer comprising a sampling section for measuring the absorbance of the sample contained in the reaction tube, and a measuring section for measuring the absorbance of the sample contained in the reaction tube, the method comprising: It is determined whether the measurement result is within a predetermined range by comparing it with the value of Determine whether the problem is due to an inappropriate dilution ratio or other reasons based on the measurement results, and if the problem is caused by an inappropriate dilution ratio for the sample, determine the optimal dilution ratio based on the measurement results. The sample is re-diluted at the optimum dilution ratio in the dilution section and then dispensed into the reaction tube for re-measurement. The method is characterized in that the sample is re-diluted using the same dilution factor as the previous time, and then dispensed into the reaction tube and re-measured.

(Function) In the sample re-measurement method according to the present invention configured as described above, it is determined based on the measurement result whether a measurement error has occurred or whether a correct measurement result has been obtained, and the measurement error is detected. If this occurs, the measurement results will be used to determine whether the measurement error is due to an inappropriate dilution ratio of the sample, and if it is due to an inappropriate dilution ratio, an appropriate dilution ratio will be set based on the measurement results and the dilution section Therefore, even though the appropriate dilution ratio for re-measuring a sample with a measurement error can be re-measured over a very wide range, valuable samples can be quickly re-measured without wasting valuable samples. can be executed.

(Example) An example of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of an automatic chemical analyzer used in the sample remeasurement method according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, a reaction tube 1 into which a sample to be measured is dispensed is appropriately attached to a drive belt 2 and can be moved intermittently in the direction of arrow E in the figure. Note that among the reaction tubes 1 installed in parallel with the driving direction E, one line is a sample dilution line for diluting the sample, and the remaining lines, for example, 4
The book line is the reaction line used for measurement.
18 is a sampling nozzle 3 and a dilution nozzle 3
It is a sampling unit equipped with a, and is appropriately fixed to a part of an endless belt 20 stretched between a driving pulley 19a and a driven pulley 19b, and is capable of reciprocating along a sliding portion 21 in the direction of arrow F in the figure. . The sampling nozzle 3 and the dilution nozzle 3a are capable of reciprocating with respect to the sampling unit 18 from the front side of the drawing toward the back side,
The other end is connected to a dilution pump 5a connected to a sampling pump 5 and a dilution water bottle 6, respectively. Reference numeral 9a denotes a sample unit, on which individual specimen samples 9 are arranged vertically and horizontally, and can be driven in the direction of arrow G in the figure. 11 is a reagent nozzle, and reaction tube 1 belonging to the reaction line
A predetermined amount of reagent can be dispensed. The sampling nozzle 3 that requires the above-mentioned drive, the dilution nozzle 3a,
The driving of the sampling pump 5, dilution pump 5a, drive pulley 19a, sample unit 9a, and reagent nozzle 11 is controlled by a drive control section 16 based on input to an input device 17. Furthermore, although omitted in the figure, an input device 17
is connected to the data processing section 14. In addition, a measurement unit (not shown) that measures absorbance sequentially sends data to the data processing unit 14, and after processing the measured values, obtains the analysis value from an output device (not shown). shall be taken as a thing.

Note that the data processing unit 14 is capable of modifying its calculation method in response to input to the input device 17. The input device 17 also includes an operation key for inputting the sample number at the time of re-measurement, and an operation key for inputting the dilution factor at the time of re-measurement.

The operation of the device configured as above will be explained. Based on the data input from the input device 17, first the drive pulley 19a and the sample unit 9a are operated, and the sampling nozzle 3 of the sampling unit 18 picks up the specified specimen sample 9.
Move directly above. After that, the sampling nozzle 3 is moved so that its tip is immersed in the specimen sample 9, and the sampling pump 5 is activated to aspirate a predetermined specimen, and the drive pulley 19a is activated again to move the sampling unit 18 onto the specimen dilution line. Moving. Here, the aspirated specimen is discharged into the reaction tube 1 from the sampling nozzle 3, and the dilution pump 5a is activated to discharge dilution water through the dilution nozzle 3a. In this way, the sample and dilution water mixed at a ratio of 1:1 in the reaction tube on the sample dilution line are sucked into the sampling nozzle 3 again, and are transferred to each reaction tube 1 on the reaction line for that test item. A predetermined amount is dispensed accordingly. Then drive belt 2
moves intermittently, and the next designated sample is dispensed into the reaction tube 1 on the reaction line by the same action as above. The reaction tube 1 into which the samples have been sequentially dispensed moves in the direction of the arrow E shown in the figure, and the reagent according to the test item is dispensed from the reagent nozzle 11.The reaction tube 1 then moves to the measurement section (not shown) and is exposed to light of a predetermined wavelength. Absorbance measurement is performed by irradiating the
After the calculation is performed, the sample number and the analysis result are printed and output from an output device (not shown). Based on the analysis results, the measurer first compares the analytical value of the standard serum with the known absorbance of that standard serum, and after confirming that the device is working properly, performs measurements on other individual samples. Check whether an error message is output. To determine whether there is a measurement error (hereinafter also referred to as measurement impossible), the data processing unit 14 determines whether the absorbance is outside the upper limit absorbance or lower limit absorbance range shown in FIG.
This is done by making a judgment in the following. In FIG. 2, is the measurable absorbance in the rising reaction, and indicates the absorbance below the upper limit absorbance at the illustrated measurement point. On the other hand, although ' is the same increasing reaction, the absorbance at the measurement point shows a value greater than the upper limit absorbance, so it can be determined that measurement is impossible. is the measurable absorbance in the descending reaction, and the absorbance at the measurement point is above the lower limit absorbance, but the absorbance at the measurement point '' is below the lower limit absorbance and can be considered to be impossible to measure. If the above-mentioned judgment criteria and absorbance fluctuations during measurement exceed a certain standard value, a data error is displayed for each sample and output together with the sample number. The causes of inability to measure can be considered to be the ones listed above, but they can be broadly divided into two.

(A) Abnormalities in the sample (high concentration of the sample, high units, poor color tone, etc.) (B) Abnormalities other than the sample (formation of bubbles during dispensing or stirring, staining of the reaction tube, etc.) In case of cause (B) It was a sudden accident,
It is sufficient to take out a certain amount of the specimen again from the specimen sample 9 and perform the re-measurement. Although it is not shown in the figure, the sample is discharged from the reaction tube 1 after the measurement is completed, and the sample is then washed, so there is no possibility that a measurement error will be displayed again due to dirt in the reaction tube. You can think about it.

In the case of cause (A), the results are the same even if remeasured under the same conditions, so it is necessary to change the sample conditions and remeasure. Therefore, after determining the cause of the inability to measure, the operator should press the operation key corresponding to the sample number for the sample for which a measurement error was displayed due to cause (B), and then press the operation key corresponding to the sample number due to cause (A). For a sample for which a measurement error has been displayed, the operation keys for determining the sample number and dilution factor are input into the input device 17 by operating the respective operation keys.

By performing the above operation, after all measurements in the reaction line are completed, the sample for which re-measurement is specified will be dispensed into the reaction tube of the sample dilution line again, and if the dilution ratio is not specified, the sample will be 1:1 again. If diluted and a dilution rate is specified, for example 1:
The sample is diluted to 10 and remeasured. In addition, when the dilution factor is specified, the arithmetic processing in the data processing is performed by inputting the dilution factor input from the input device 17 to the data processing section and taking that value into consideration.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail above, the present invention is applicable not only to discrete type but also to various automatic chemical analyzers such as flow type.
In addition, in the above embodiment, the dilution device is configured to deal with the case where the concentration of the sample to be analyzed is too high, which is a frequent cause of failure to measure, taking biochemical reactions as an example. , we have tried to improve the efficiency of re-measurement, but there are various reasons why measurements cannot be made in other various measurements. Therefore, with regard to other various automatic chemical analyzers, it is desirable to improve the efficiency of re-measurement by equipping them with auxiliary devices corresponding to each of the causes of inability to measure. For example, if a measurement error is displayed due to insufficient sample volume, an accessory device such as a dispensing device may be provided to increase the sample volume during re-measurement. In addition, if the cause of the inability to measure is limited and the conditions for re-measuring can be determined in the judgment circuit of the data processing section 14, the signal is automatically fed back to the input device 17,
It is also possible to perform remeasurement fully automatically without requiring manual intervention.

It goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, and includes various modifications within the scope of the invention.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, according to the present invention, valuable specimens are wasted despite the fact that the appropriate dilution ratio for re-measuring a specimen for which a measurement error has occurred in an automatic chemical analyzer is over a very wide range. It is possible to provide a method for re-measuring a specimen, which allows rapid re-measurement without using the sample.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of an automatic chemical analyzer used in the sample remeasurement method according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a characteristic diagram showing the relationship between time and absorbance and determining abnormalities in measured values. . DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Reaction tube, 2... Drive belt, 3... Sampling nozzle, 3a... Dilution nozzle, 5... Sampling pump, 5a... Dilution pump, 6... Dilution water bottle, 9... Specimen sample, 9a... Sample unit, 11... Reagent nozzle, 14...data processing section, 1
6... Drive control device, 17... Input device, 18... Sampling unit, 19a... Drive pulley, 19b
...Followed pulley, 20...Endless belt, 21...Slide portion.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A reaction line consisting of reaction tubes arranged in a row for containing a sample to be measured, a dilution section attached to this reaction line, a sample unit section containing the sample, and a sample unit section for disposing the sample in the sample unit section. An automatic device comprising: a sampling section for aspirating the sample, discharging it into the diluting section, aspirating the diluted sample again, and dispensing it into the reaction line; and a measuring section for measuring the absorbance of the sample contained in the reaction tube. A method for re-measuring a sample in a chemical analyzer, in which it is determined whether the measurement result is within a predetermined range by comparing the measurement result of the sample by the measurement section with a predetermined value, and If the measurement result is outside the specified range, it is determined based on the measurement result whether the cause of the measurement result being outside the specified range is due to an inappropriate dilution ratio of the sample or other reasons. If this is due to an inappropriate dilution ratio of the specimen, set an optimal dilution ratio based on the measurement results, re-dilute the specimen according to the optimal dilution ratio in the dilution section, and then dispense it into the reaction tube. Perform re-measurement, and if the dilution rate of the sample is due to reasons other than inappropriateness, re-dilute the sample at the same dilution rate as the previous time in the dilution section, dispense it into the reaction tube, and perform re-measurement. How to re-measure the sample.