Measuring and testing – Instrument proving or calibrating – Gas or liquid analyzer
Patent
1996-01-16
1998-10-13
Williams, Hezron E.
Measuring and testing
Instrument proving or calibrating
Gas or liquid analyzer
204403, 324439, 422 61, G01P 500
Patent
active
058213996
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and system for compensation of test parameter variations. In particular, the invention relates to a method and system for compensating the fluid flow deviations due to wear and other factors influencing the performance of a real time fluid analysis test system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The testing of blood or other body fluids for medical evaluation and diagnosis has traditionally been performed in large, well equipped centralized laboratories. Such laboratories offer a wide range of efficient and accurate testing procedures for a high number of fluid samples. Centralized processing of fluid test samples has important advantages including the use of sophisticated, automated analytical technology and highly trained personnel capable of calibrating and actively controlling operating parameters of this technology. However, the centralized type of testing has a number of disadvantages as well. An important one, for example, is that the test results are typically not immediately available to the physician who requested the test. Delays reaching several days are often caused by the fact that each sample has to be collected, transported to the centralized laboratory and then processed. The analysis results can only then be communicated to the physicians, so that even in a hospital setting there may be significant delays, jeopardizing on occasions the patient's health. In addition, test instruments designed for processing large numbers of samples, require specialized maintenance, especially for elements of the system in contact with the fluid, such as sensors and flow paths. Therefore, there is a recognized need for testing apparatuses which would permit the physician to obtain immediate results while examining a patient, whether in his office, in the hospital emergency room, or at the patient's bedside elsewhere in a hospital.
A number of prior art testing systems have been designed to meet such need. Many devices are only capable of making simple test measurements. For example, well known are glucose meters, based on the use of calorimetric strips which require the tested fluid to be directly applied to a sensing region. Other test systems, such as the Biotrack PT analyzer made by the Ciba Corning Diagnostics Corp. rely on passive capillary draw within a cartridge to move the test fluid to the sensing region. A similar approach is used in systems such as the Kyoto Daiichi glucose sensor, the U.S. Surgical Corporation's Statcrit hematocrit sensor system and the Hemocue glucose and hematocrit cartridges made by Mallinkrodt Sensor Systems, Inc. In a different approach, the TAS instrument made by Cardiovascular Diagnostics generates an oscillating magnetic field which causes magnetic particles to dissolve and mix a fluid contained within the cartridge. In all these products, the test system is adapted for relatively simple measurements with no instrument control over the actions of fluids within the cartridges.
Other prior art fluid analysis systems can perform more complex measurements and have a correspondingly more complicated design. Several systems of this type (notably the Abbott Vision system and the EPOC test system developed by Abaxis) use centrifugal forces created by high-speed rotation of a cartridge containing the test sample to separate out its major components, and an optical analysis instrument which relies on optical transmission differences to make the measurement. This design approach is, however, not suitable for bedside analysis due to the large size of the instrument.
In order to avoid the problem of specialized maintenance of portions of the test equipment which are in direct contact with the test samples, several prior art sensing instruments utilize disposable test measurement cartridges. For example, the test system disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,301,412 and 4,301,414 to Hill et al. employs a disposable sample card carrying a capillary tube and two electrodes. The sample card is inserted into an instrument to read the electr
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i-STAT Corporation
Larkin Daniel S.
Williams Hezron E.
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