Filter Sampler

Clinical laboratories use serum and plasma samples for numerous vital studies. Porex’s FILTER SAMPLER Blood Serum Filter answers several essential sample-handling needs by eliminating particulates that can clog instrumentation.

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Design Challenge:
Clinical laboratories use serum and plasma for a number of vital studies. Venous blood samples are typically collected in an evacuated tube, which contains a rubber-type stopper to maintain a partial vacuum. A centrifugation process separates the blood into a top layer of serum and a lower layer of clotted/ whole blood cells. Clinical laboratories required a solution for frequent problems with fibrin, an insoluble protein, and gel particulates in the serum. These particulates interfered with the transfer of serum from the sample tube to clinical instrumentation, often clogging ISE systems.

Solution:
POREX® Porous Plastics offered the ideal solution as a filter for the serum due to the material's depth filtration. Porex engineers developed a collection tube, stopple and porous high density polyethylene filter to solve the challenge. The Porex FILTER SAMPLER® Blood Serum Filter simply and easily removes fibrin and gel particulates from centrifuged whole blood specimens contained in standard 16, 13, or 10.25mm I.D. collection tubes.

Result:
Porex’s FILTER SAMPLER Blood Serum Filter answers several essential sampling handling needs by eliminating fibrin and gel particulates that can clog laboratory instrumentation, the basic design challenge. Additional advantages of the design include: (1) direct instrument sampling from primary collection tubes, (2) storage of capped specimens for up to seven days, and (3) closed filtration and dispensing, eliminating the need for transfer pipettes and capping materials.

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