The recent development ACT Robot is the only automat which uses the „gold standard” tube technique making the evaluation of every blood-group serological reaction possible. The fully automated (walkaway) system carries out every step of the manual tube technique automatically:
- Cellwashing
- Dispensing samples and reagents
- Adding AHG reagent
- Incubation
- Reading of results
- Saving, storing and printing the results
This way it is able to standardise the „professionally used” manual tube technique.
When reading the results the ACT systems trace the sedimentation process of the cells or agglutinates very similarly to the most successful modern technical solutions the gel-card systems (but without using gel). A photometer follows the sedimentation of the suspension which takes place as a result of centrifuging. During sedimentation the intensity of the light crossing the sample changes. This way sedimentation curves are produced which are evaluated for the routine by the software of the instrument and the user can view, analyse or use for research as is needed.
The sedimentation curves give information about the appropriate circumstances of the measurement.
The results can be printed and sent to the database of the hospital.
This is the first blood-group serological instrument to carry out antiglobulin tests by using an opto-electronic reading unit.
The instrument takes camera pictures of the samples as well which appear in the screen at the end of the measurement together with the results.
The sensitivity and specificity of the automated manual tube technique match those of the „new” serological systems and in case of certain measurement types it outperforms them (gel techniques, solid phase technique, etc.) using the appropriate additives (ADD-LISS, Polythylene Glycol/PEG).
The ACT systems can be used for every task of the blood-group serological routine:
- Antibody screening
- Antibody identification
- ABO typing
- Phenotyping
- Compatibility tests (Crossmatching)
- Direct Coombs test
They offer the widest choice of methods from among the modern instruments:
- Enzyme test
- Antiglobulin test (LISS, PEG)
- Polybrene test
The ACT-Robot is able to carry out the coombs/enzyme screening of 120 patients a day. The fully automated ACT-Robot not only matches the other blood-group serological solutions but also proves to fill a market gap in the profession.
The robot does not need any disposables apart from the traditional reagents so it can offer a cost efficient solution.
The decanting system of the ACT centrifuge unit carries out the cleaning and drying of the cuvettes after use so there is no need to change the cuvettes.
36 bent glass tubes (cuvettes) are fixed in the rotor of the centrifuge which can be lifted to different inclination angles and can be spinned with the given speed according to whether shaking, centrifuging, reading, decanting or drying takes place.
The detection of the full view of the samples has been made possible with a camera.
Dispensing and incubation happens outside the ACT unit in microplate kind round shaped trays.
Barcode reading and the mixing of samples happen automatically as well.
The advantages of the new system:
- It has no disposable parts, only the traditional reagents: it is an open system.
- Higher throughput: more samples in a given time period.
- Safer measuring results: fewer ambiguous results.
- Smaller size.
Thanks to the user friendly software it is possible to satisfy special needs as well and to introduce new measuring techniques.
Using ACT systems enables the quality improvement of the special laboratory work in an automated and reliable way.
A leaflet of ACT-Robot is available:
