Performance Evaluation of the Hitachi 7600-110 Chemistry Autoanalyzer

Cho, Sung Eun; Nam, Jun Woo; Hong, Ki Sook

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Hitachi 7600-110 (Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan) is an automated chemistry analyzer introduced in 1999. It consists of one dispensing type plus one pipetting type module and one electrolyte analyzer. We evaluated the performance of the analyzer in order to access the utility of the Hitachi 7600-110 autoanalyzer for the efficiency of routine chemistry work.
METHODS
Within-day and between-day precision, accuracy, linearity, and recovery rates for albumin, ALP, ALT, AST, BUN, Ca, cholesterol, creatinine, r-GT, glucose, phosphorus, total bilirubin, TG, total protein, uric acid, CK, direct bilirubin, Fe, HDL-cholesterol, LD, Mg, Cl, K, and Na (24 items) were evaluated. Commercialized quality control material, Lyphochek (Bio-Rad, CA, USA) and patient sera for test specimens were used. Vitros 750 (Johnson & Johnson, Rochester, USA) was used as a control analyzer to evaluate the correlation.
RESULTS
The within-day coefficients of variations (CVs) of almost all items were less than 3.0% except for direct bilirubin (7.71%), Mg (6.65%), and Fe (5.83%). The between-day CVs of almost all items were less than 5% except the direct bilirubin (13.16%). All items showed good linearity in the performance range (r>0.99, slope, 0.97-1.0). The results of ALT, AST, BUN, creatinine, glucose, CK, LD, Cl, K, and Na between Hitachi 7600-110 and the Vitros 750 revealed good correlation (r> or = 0.975) except Na and Cl. Hitachi data of Na and Cl showed significantly lower results (P<0.05) than did the Vitros 750 data. The recovery rates for BUN, creatinine, glucose, and uric acid were in the range of 100.00 to 101.78%.
CONCLUSIONS
Hitachi 7600-110 showed acceptable performance in the "within-day" and "between-day" precision, linearity, and accuracy. The Hitachi 7600-110 that combines dispensing and pipetting modules can improve the speed and the efficiency of the workflow and can minimize the reagent consumption and the cost of system management. Therefore, it can be used both in large laboratories in general hospitals with many examinations and in small laboratories with relatively small numbers of cases.