Clinical Chemistry, Vol 33, 2089-2092, Copyright © 1987 by American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Evaluation of the Hitachi 704 automatic analyzer

EG Lentjes, GA Harff and ET Backer
Department of Clinical Chemistry, Diaconessenhuis, Leiden, The Netherlands.

We evaluated the analytical performance of the Hitachi 704 automatic analyzer. The spectrophotometer showed a linearity of response at 340 nm up to 2.8 A. Photometric imprecision measured bichromatically at 340 and 376 nm was 0.49% at 0.16 A, 0.14% at 0.46 A, and 0.17% at 0.76 A. Imprecision of the sample probe was 0.4% for 5, 10, and 20 microL, and the volume delivered deviated -2.4%, -4.4%, and -4.2% from these preset volumes, respectively. Imprecision of the reagent probe over the range 50 to 500 microL ranged from 0.14% to 0.29%; volume delivered deviated from +1.7% to +4.4%). At equilibrium, the temperature in the cuvets was 29.8 (SD 0.05) degree C as measured by cresol red spectrophotometry. No sample carryover was detected. Reagent carryover was detected when a bilirubin assay was preceded by a total protein assay and when lactate dehydrogenase was measured after alanine aminotransferase. Imprecision for nine tests at three concentrations ranged from 1.1% to 4.4%. Comparison of methods with the SMAC II as reference method showed good results. Precision was better than reported for the Hitachi 705 automatic analyzer.