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SV-10 Viscosity Measurement Medical Application
Reported by Hiroshi Oyama, International Marketing Division
A&D is carrying a variety of product lines to serve your various needs in different industries as well as in the home. We have a line of viscometers among our products, named SV-10 and SV-100. Because of the uniqueness of our approach, our viscometer is widely accepted in various applications. Unlike conventional viscometers, the SV series does not stir specimen which may cause changes to its viscosity. (Remember, just as you stir cream well to make whipped cream to decorate a homemade cake.) Our models do not stir the specimen, but give a very small vibration (so called sine-wave vibration) to preserve the sample's original viscosity.
This new method (A&D original) gives users more benefits. It works well for low viscosity measurement with good repeatability. In the medical field, some doctors have started using our viscometer in their study, for good repeatability in low viscosity measurements when measuring body fluids.
One example is brought from a dialysis clinic in Tokyo. The doctor at the Sugamo Clinic needs to know blood viscosity for before and after its dialyzer treatment. (The ideal blood viscosity values are 3.0mPas before dialysis and 2.5mPas after.) In the past, this clinic sent specimens to an outside scanning company, but with the help of our SV10, they can now measure in-house in a very short time.
At the Tokyo Women's University Hospital, SV-10 was used to measure the viscosity of bile. As bile has a very low viscosity of 1.0mPaS, the doctors were very happy to see its stable results.
Over at the Ryukyu University Hospital, a doctor is making a study of dialysis treatment. Below is a small interview with him, which you may find interesting. Of couse, he became a user of SV-10, because of its;
- - simple operation
- - good repeatability
- - capability of low viscosity measurement
- - small amount of specimen is needed.
Blood Viscosity from an interview with Dr. Oda, Ryukyu University, Okinawa
The action of blood protein and platelet in the fibrinogen and prothrombin, which are ingredients of blood, reportedly cause blood coagulation or clots. When too much of the above coagulant gets produced, the brain's blood vessels become blocked. This is called cerebral thrombosis, hemorrhage, etc.
Also, each internal organ becomes over-burdened. When the blood viscosity gets high, a lot of problems occur due to the slow transmission of oxygen and nutrients. We call such high blood viscosity "Hyper viscosity"
Blood coagulation is caused by a steep increase in blood platelet and coagulation factors. To cope with such problems, controlling blood plasma exchange or plasma cure in the dialysis circulation system exists.
During the process of plasma exchange in the dialysis system, measuring the pseudo and real blood viscosity is indispensable to controlling and finding out how much plasma exchange must be implemented and optimize values as to the related factors.
Our study involves extracting blood plasma from blood plasma exchange in the dialysis circulation and measuring the viscosity. Viscosity in this case is the absolute viscosity obtained from just extracted plasma, not viscosity changes measured over time. The extracted blood plasma is discarded after the viscosity measurement and the amount of the sample is not important.
Doctors are researching the relationship that exists between patients' condition, blood analysis and acquired data. This ideal or optimized viscosity data is measured and analyzed; the blood plasma exchange can be smoothly and properly implemented in the dialysis circulation system.
This blood plasma exchange is implemented by the artificial dialysis circulation system. Major manufacturers of such dialyzers here in Japan are Toray (Toray Medical) and Nikki-So. The artificial dialysis system circulation research consists of flowing pseudo blood into hollow fiber membranes in the system and measuring the viscosity of the pseudo blood flown in/out of the dialysis circulation.
Further information on this research is undisclosed.
For the pseudo blood, viscous material is mixed with water to produce a liquid with the same viscosity as real blood. Then, this pseudo blood is flowed into artificial dialysis system circulation. Then the viscosity of the pseudo blood obtained out of dialysis circulation is measured. Measuring the viscosity can perhaps help to evaluate the hollow fiber membrane technology, too.
We exhibited the SV-10 viscometer at the MEDICA 2004 with the panel shown below. However we were unable to give the audience much explanation of the use of our viscometers in medical fields. We hope this gives you a clearer understanding of measuring body fluids.
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