Automatic analysers performing quantitative and qualitative analysis of a specific component included in a biological specimen (hereinafter, referred to as a specimen) such as blood or urine have been indispensable for the current diagnosis and the like because of high reproducibility of an analysis result and a high processing speed.
An analysis method (colorimetric analysis) using a reagent resulting in a change in the color of a reaction solution by reacting with a component to be analyzed in a specimen, an analysis method (immunity analysis) of counting markers by using a reagent, obtained by adding a marker to a material which is directly or indirectly and specifically coupled to a component to be analyzed in a specimen, and the like are known as a measurement method used in the automatic analyser, and analysis is performed by dispensing a specimen accommodated in a specimen chamber and a reagent accommodated in a reagent chamber to a reaction chamber by using a dispensing device or the like and mixing the specimen and the reagent.
As examples of the specimen chamber accommodating the specimen in the above-described analysis, a vacuum blood collection tube of which the inside is decompressed by an opening end being closed with a rubber cap or the like, and the like may be used as the specimen chamber, in addition to an open type specimen chamber having an opening in the upper portion thereof, and various specimen dispensing methods have been considered.
As a technique for dispensing a specimen from a closed specimen chamber such as a vacuum blood collection tube, for example, PTL 1 (JP-A-4-252960) discloses a sampling device including a sample carrier that moves a plurality of sample chambers to a sampling position, a side translation device which is installed to have a movement path in sampling position information, a vertical direction translation device which is mounted so as to be positioned on the side by the side translation device, a sampling probe which is moved to the inside and outside of the sample chamber by the vertical direction translation device in a vertical direction, a liquid pump which is connected to the probe so as to suction a sample out of the sample chamber, and controller means for moving both the translation devices and the pump to perform the suctioning operation, in which both the translation devices are liquid driving type actuators, the sample chamber is erected, and at least one sample chamber is closed.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds