Measuring system capable of separating liquid and determining boundary of separated liquid

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9498154-B2
Application number	US-201013636946-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 28, 2010
Priority date	Mar 24, 2010
Publication date	Nov 22, 2016
Grant date	Nov 22, 2016

Abstract

A boundary calculating unit is provided for determining boundaries between separated plasma and blood cell or air and plasma whose image is picked up by an image pickup unit. With such boundary calculating unit provided, the boundaries between the separated plasma and blood cell or air and plasma can be determined, and areas of the separated air, plasma, and blood cell can be determined accurately. Particularly, a straight line drawing unit is provided for drawing, on the image picked up, a plurality of straight lines parallel to grooves in a disk which performs plasma separation. The boundary calculating unit can easily determine the boundaries by determining the boundaries based on a profile of the plurality of straight lines drawn by the straight line drawing unit.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A measuring system for measuring light generated from a luminescent or fluorescent substance included in a liquid to be measured, or radiation included in the liquid to be measured, comprising:
a separating device for separating the liquid to be measured;
an imager forming an image of the separated liquid; and
a boundary calculating device for determining boundaries of the separated liquid in the image, wherein:
the measuring system measures the light or the radiation from the separated liquid within the determined boundaries, respectively;
the separating device is a flat plate having grooves of a predetermined size, the liquid being in one of the grooves in which the liquid is separated;
an edge enhancing device is provided for enhancing shading differences in the image of the separated liquid in the flat plate, the shading differences being treated as edges;
a flow path position extracting device is provided for extracting, based on design information on the grooves having the predetermined size in the flat plate, and the flat plate, positions of the grooves by adjusting positions of pixels of the edges in the image; and
the boundary calculating device determines the boundaries based on the pixels of the edges in the image comprising a detecting device for simultaneously and two-dimensionally detecting the light or radiation included in the liquid to be measured to obtain two-dimensional image information of the light or radiation, and a superimposition processing device for carrying out a superimposition process to superimpose the image of the separated liquid in the separating device picked up by the image pickup device and a distribution image of the two-dimensional image information obtained by the detecting device, wherein, based on areas of the liquid divided by the boundary calculating device, and areas in the distribution image superimposed thereon, information on the light or radiation in these areas is obtained; wherein the liquid to be measured is blood including radiation, the separating device carries out plasma separation which centrifuges and separates the blood into plasma and blood cell, and the boundary calculating device determines boundaries between plasma and blood cell, the detecting device simultaneously and two-dimensionally detects the radiation included in the blood to obtain two-dimensional image information of the radiation, the superimposition processing device carries out a superimposition process to superimpose the image resulting from the plasma separation and the distribution image of the two-dimensional image information obtained by the detecting device, and based on the plasma and blood cell divided by the boundary calculating device and the plasma and blood cell in the distribution image superimposed thereon, a radioactive concentration is determined for each of the plasma and blood cell.

2. The measuring system according to claim 1 , wherein the flat plate is a planar disk, and grooves are formed in the predetermined size radially of the disk.

3. The measuring system according to claim 2 , comprising a rotating device disposed centrally of the disk for rotating the disk, the liquid to be measured being centrifuged using a centrifugal force of the disk generated by the rotating device.

4. The measuring system according to claim 3 , wherein the liquid to be measured is blood, and plasma separation is carried out to centrifuge the blood and separate the blood into plasma and blood cell using the centrifugal force of the flat plate generated by the rotating device.

5. The measuring system according to claim 1 , further comprising an edge enhancing device for enhancing, as edges, the shading differences of the image in the pixel positions adjusted by the flow path position extracting device, wherein the boundary calculating device determines as boundaries the edges enhanced by the edge enhancing device.

6. The measuring system according to claim 5 , comprising a straight line drawing device for drawing a plurality of straight lines parallel to the grooves on the image with the edges enhanced by the edge enhancing device which enhances, as the edges, the shading differences of the image in the pixel positions adjusted by the flow path position extracting device, wherein the boundary calculating device determines the boundaries based on a profile of the plurality of straight lines drawn by the straight line drawing device.

7. The measuring system according to claim 5 , wherein the edge enhancing device which enhances, as the edges, the shading differences of the image in the pixel positions adjusted by the flow path position extracting device is a second edge enhancing device, and further the edge enhancing device which enhances, as the edges, the shading differences in the image of the separated liquid in the flat plate picked up by the image pickup device is a first edge enhancing device, the second edge enhancing device carrying out edge enhancement after edge enhancement by the first edge enhancing device.

8. The measuring system according claim 1 , wherein the edge enhancing device carries out the edge enhancement by primary differential which determines differences between an attention pixel and its peripheral pixels.

9. The measuring system according to claim 1 , wherein the edge enhancing device carries out the edge enhancement by quadratic differential which determines further differences of differences between the attention pixel and its peripheral pixels.

10. The measuring system according to claim 1 , wherein the liquid to be measured is a liquid including a fluorescent substance, the detecting device simultaneously and two-dimensionally detects light included in the liquid to obtain two-dimensional image information of the light, and based on areas of the liquid divided by the boundary calculating device and areas in the distribution image superimposed thereon, densities of the fluorescent substance in these areas are determined.

Assignees

• Hashizume Nobuya
• Kitamura Keishi
• Nishimoto Takahiro
• Tsuda Tomoaki
• Kimura Yuichi
• Seki Chie
• Kanno Iwao
• Shimadzu Corp
• Nat Inst For Quantum And Radiological Science And Tech

Inventors

• Hashizume Nobuya
• Kitamura Keishi
• Nishimoto Takahiro
• Tsuda Tomoaki
• Kimura Yuichi
• Seki Chie
• Kanno Iwao

Classifications

• G01N21/07

  Centrifugal type cuvettes (G01N21/09 takes precedence) · CPC title

• A61B5/150221

  Valves · CPC title

• A61B5/150755

  Blood sample preparation for further analysis, e.g. by separating blood components or by mixing · CPC title

• A61B5/1427 Primary

  Multiple blood sampling, e.g. at periodic or pre-established intervals · CPC title

• G01N2015/045

  by optical analysis · CPC title