03/01/2006

Advances in analytical and diagnostic tests

The development of diagnostic products and systems has paralleled the development of new technologies in fields such as biology, electronics and computer science.

As a result, modern analytical and diagnostic tests have become ever more effective in determining a patient’s clinical state. The firm Grifols specialises in the development of sophisticated instrumentation and methods for clinical analysis, which has led to numerous technological advances to facilitate the work of diagnosticians in three critical categories: Haemostasis, Immunology and Immunohaematology. The company’s automated laboratory solutions presented at Medica, last November, included:

Haemostasis - Grifols offers a complete catalogue of products to determine the haemostatic balance of patients, including reagents (clotting, chromogenic and immunologic techniques), avant-garde automated instrumentation and oral anticoagulation expert software.

Immunology - The Triturus System consists of the Triturus analyser and associated reagent panels. The system is the first completely open, fully-automated, multi-test and multi-batch enzyme immunoassay analyser designed to automatically perform all the steps of any microplate EIA test. Grifols reports that the highly-flexible system provides the most efficient approach to automation of the ELISA workload without changing a laboratory’s routine workflow.

Immunohaematology - Grifols’ Immunohaematology system includes the fully automated WaDiana compact analyser, the semi-automated Diana processor, manual instrumentation and the DG Gel cards, which the company points out is ‘... the next generation of gel cards at the cutting edge of column agglutination techniques. The development of new technology, the optimised column design, the exclusive presentation, the stability of the reagents and the unique 8-column format are all clear advances, providing the Immunohaematology lab with clear and reliable results in pre-transfusion testing.’