Chemical apparatus and process disinfecting – deodorizing – preser – Analyzer – structured indicator – or manipulative laboratory... – Sample mechanical transport means in or for automated...
Patent
1995-03-13
1996-11-12
Snay, Jeffrey
Chemical apparatus and process disinfecting, deodorizing, preser
Analyzer, structured indicator, or manipulative laboratory...
Sample mechanical transport means in or for automated...
436 48, 118423, B05C 302
Patent
active
055737277
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to an automatic staining apparatus for histochemical staining of tissue slide specimens and in particular to an improved automatic staining apparatus that can simultaneously process a plurality of slide specimens in accordance with different staining processes.
One known method of staining slide specimens is a "bicycle chain" apparatus wherein slide clips hold individual slides and the processing or staining of the slides according to a particular staining schedule occurs by the "bicycle chain" moving the slides across a linear collection of baths and the slides being immersed for a fixed period of 30 or 60 seconds in a particular bath and then being removed and moved to the next scheduled bath.
This apparatus however is labour intensive when coping with a multitude of slide specimens as each slide clip only holds a single slide. In a normal day at a large laboratory it may be necessary to process some 3,000 slides, therefore this process is highly inadequate. Further the "bicycle chain" apparatus is not economical in its processing as it has fixed immersion times, therefore if a schedule requires a shorter or longer immersion time, the chemical effect must be achieved by altering the concentrations of the chemicals. This requires either continual alteration of the concentration of chemicals in a particular bath or a plurality of baths with the same chemicals but at different concentrations. A large number of baths is therefore needed to provide a variety of schedules. The "bicycle chain" apparatus is also uneconomical in that in a linear system the time of travel from one bath at one end of the apparatus to the scheduled next bath, for a slide to be immersed in, at the other end of the apparatus, may substantially lengthen the time within which the staining procedure of a plurality of slides is completed.
Another known apparatus for automatic staining of slide specimens is a batch stainer apparatus wherein a basket holds a plurality of slides and the apparatus processes the slides according to a single staining procedure or schedule. However the next batch of slide specimens is not able to be processed until the first batch has completed its schedule and been removed from the apparatus. As a staining schedule may take from 1/2 to 3 hours then either a plurality of machines is needed or the length of time for processing the plurality of slide specimens is substantially lengthened. It is usually also uneconomical to proceed until the basket holding the slides is completely full.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an improved automatic staining apparatus which overcomes one or more of the aforementioned disadvantages of known machines.
According to one aspect of the invention there is provided automatic tissue staining apparatus for staining tissue slide specimens, said apparatus comprising one or more slide racks each adapted to contain a plurality of said slides, a plurality of baths for containing chemicals for treating said specimens, said baths being located within a casing, and means for moving a said rack from one said bath to another, according to a microprocessor controlled programmable staining schedule, characterised in that, said microprocessor is programmable with different staining schedules and contains logic whereby multiple schedules can operate simultaneously.
In order that the invention is more readily understood a particular embodiment thereof will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:
FIG. 1 is a perspective view from above of an automatic staining apparatus in accordance with the invention;
FIG. 2 is a perspective view from above of a bath in accordance with the invention;
FIG. 2a is a side view of the handle of the bath of FIG. 2; and
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a slide rack in accordance with the invention;
FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the overall process in accordance with the invention;
FIG. 5 is a flowchart of the first part of the process of the invention as shown in FIG. 4 which calc
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Australian Biomedical Corporation Ltd.
Markoff Alexander
Snay Jeffrey
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