Blood filter cartridge

Details Blood filter cartridge Blood filter cartridge

1999-12-28

2001-12-11

Kim, John (Department: 1723)

Liquid purification or separation

Filter

Prefilt flow distributor or diverter

C210S503000, C210S505000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06328167

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a blood filter cartridge for the preparation of a plasma or serum sample from whole blood.
The type or concentration of blood components, such as metabolites, proteins, lipids, electrolytes, enzymes, antigens, and antibodies, is measured, in general, using a plasma or serum sample obtained by centrifuging whole blood. However, centrifuging takes labor and time. Particularly, centrifuging is unsuitable for an urgent case of measuring a small number of samples promptly and in site inspection, because of requiring a centrifuge and electricity. Thereupon, it has been investigated to separate serum from whole blood by filtration.
Several filtration methods using glass fiber filter have been developed wherein whole blood is charged into the glass fiber put in a column from one side of the column, and pressurized or evacuated to obtain plasma or serum from the other side (Japanese Patent KOKOKU Nos. 44-14673, 5-52463, Japanese Patent KOKAI Nos. 2-208565, 4-208856).
However, practical filtration methods capable of obtaining an amount of plasma or serum from whole blood necessary for measuring by an automatic analyzer have not been developed except a part of items, such as blood sugar.
On the other hand, the inventors developed a blood filter cartridge composed of a filter holder and a syringe. The filter holder is composed of a holder body which contains filter material and a cap which is screwed on the holder body. The filter material consists of, e.g. two sheets of glass fiber filter, one sheet of cellulose filter and one sheet of polysulfone microporous membrane (FIG. 1 of EP 785430 A1)
Another blood filter cartridge composed of a holder body and a cap was also developed. The holder body consists of a plasma receiver located on the upper side and a filter chamber located on the underside. The filter material put in the filter chamber is composed of six sheets of glass fiber filter and one sheet of polysulfone microporous membrane (Example 1 of EP 785012A1).
The inventors further developed various blood filter cartridges, and their patent applications were made (Japanese Patent KOKAI 10-227788, 10-185909, 10-185780, etc.)
However, since the above blood filter cartridges are of a type of attaching a suction nozzle to the blood inlet and sucking blood from a blood collecting tube, a part of blood essentially remains in the blood collecting tube and the suction nozzle without filtered. As a result, the volume of drawn blood increases to add a burden to a person who takes a medical inspection. Particularly, in the case of clinical assay using a dry analytical element, although analysis of plural items can be achieved by using about 100 to 500 &mgr;l plasma, the volume of drawn blood, in general, exceeds 10 ml.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention is to provide a blood filter cartridge which can prepare a plasma or serum sample from a mall volume of blood efficiently.
The inventors investigated eagerly in order to solve the above problems, and found that, by the conventional system, blood inevitably remains in the blood collecting tube due to sucking blood from the tube, and moreover, remains in the suction nozzle due to the slender shape of the blood collecting tube which increases the lift from the blood level in the tube to the blood filter cartridge.
Thereupon, they devised to add a blood reservoir to the blood filter cartridge, and succeeded in filtering almost the total volume of drawn blood by pouring the blood drawn by a blood drawing syringe, and thereby decreasing the volume of drawn blood sharply.
Thus, the present invention provides a blood filter cartridge which comprises a blood filtering material and a holder containing the blood filtering material, wherein the holder is provided with a blood reservoir which connects with an inflow side of the blood filtering material and a filtrate receiver which connects with an outflow side of the blood filtering material.


REFERENCES:
patent: Re. 35225 (1996-04-01), Herweck et al.
patent: 4987085 (1991-01-01), Allen et al.
patent: 5266219 (1993-11-01), Pall et al.
patent: 5979669 (1999-11-01), Kitajima et al.
patent: 5996811 (1999-12-01), Kitajima et al.
patent: 6045699 (2000-04-01), Yazawa et al.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Blood filter cartridge does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Blood filter cartridge, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Blood filter cartridge will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2599397