Prothrombin time tests on a microfluidic disc analyzer

Abstract

Prothrombin time test is used to measure the time required for blood to coagulate and is essential for monitoring appropriate drug dosing in patients taking oral anti-coagulants. To reduce the costs of reagents and improve the stability of tests, a microfluidic disc analyzer (MDA) has been developed. This analyzer can process small volumes of liquid samples (less than 10 mu l total volume required) and performs effective and fast mixing (within one second) under centrifugation. During the mixing process, two reactants can also maintain a constant ratio of flowrate. One hundred and one clinical samples were tested by the MDA and the Sysmex CA1500 coagulation analyzer, which was frequently used as a reference machine, for comparison. The test results from these two instruments show good correlation and agreement. (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.