Fast turnaround and low maintenance determine choice of new automated analyser for routine laboratory use at Dublin's Mater Misericordiae hospital
Faced with a rapidly expanding immunoassay workload, the endocrinology department at Mater Misericordiae hospital in Dublin recently went out to tender for a new automated analyser for routine laboratory use.
After considering a number of options, principal biochemist Dermot Cannon and his colleagues decided in favour of the Advia Centaur immunoassay system, which has recently been installed.
Bayer had also supplied the department's previous analyser, the Bayer Immuno 1. "Our main requirements were improved turnaround time for tests coupled with low maintenance", says Cannon.
"We also wanted a solution which would not involve too many changes to the reference ranges and analytical values we had been used to in the laboratory.
"The Advia Centaur satisfied these key requirements.
"We were also influenced by the experience of our past dealings with Bayer, having confidence in their engineers and help desk personnel".
The Advia Centaur is said to offer the highest throughput of any immunoassay system on the market, enabling laboratories to meet the demands of ever-increasing workloads.
At the same time, its minimal requirements for operator intervention help to release skilled staff for other tasks.
Designed for productivity, the Advia Centaur has a throughput of up to 240 tests per hour with on-board capacity for 180 samples.
Excellent testing sensitivity is achieved through the use of direct chemiluminescence technology which is applied across a comprehensive assay portfolio.
The range of tests available for the system is being expanded all the time.
Dermot Cannon and his colleagues are looking forward to the recent release of reagents for Bayer's serum HER-2/neu oncoprotein test for the Advia Centaur which they intend to use for research purposes.
They also hope to make use of other analytes from the system's extensive assay menu for specialised applications in the future, including oestradiol, testosterone and intact parathyroid (iPTH). The Advia Centaur is now in routine use in the laboratory, where staff have received its introduction well.
"Overall, we're pleased with the assay performance and productivity", says Cannon.
"The system does exactly what Bayer said it would do in terms of speed of processing, and daily maintenance requirements are low.
" would say that it lives up to our expectations on all counts.
"Another reason for choosing the system was the fact that there is an increasing number of Advia Centaur users on the Neqas scheme - in fact, the system is the market leader for many of the analytes", he concludes.
"It is always encouraging to know that a lot of other laboratories are using the same machine as you are."
