21 – AUTOMATION OF IMMUNOASSAYS

This chapter focuses on the concept, principle, issues, and performance of automated immunoassay systems. Over the past 20 years, major advances have been made in automating routine, general clinical chemistry procedures. Discrete and random access analyzers provided a wide spectrum of chemistry tests around the clock to meet the demands of rapid testing. Recently, more attention has been focused on automating the sample-handling and processing steps, especially with regard to infectious specimens from patients with hepatitis or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In the 1990s, the clinical laboratory faced many challenges. These include the chronic shortage of qualified technologists, reengineering, space limitation in the hospital, and decreased available resources for the laboratory. Despite these challenges, the users expect the laboratory to provide better services. To meet these challenges, the clinical laboratory needs to become more efficient by incorporating creative solutions and adapting to changes. One solution is automation and system integration. Because most clinical laboratory procedures are labor intensive, automation reduces the dependency of the labor requirement. Smaller clinical laboratories could justify performing a larger menu of tests “in-house” rather than sending them to outside laboratories.