title: System Design and Development of a Robotic Device for Automated Venipuncture and Diagnostic Blood Cell Analysis.
abstract: Diagnostic blood testing is the most prevalent medical procedure performed in the world and forms the cornerstone of modern health care delivery. Yet blood tests are still predominantly carried out in centralized labs using large-volume samples acquired by manual venipuncture, and no end-to-end solution from blood draw to sample analysis exists today. Our group is developing a platform device that merges robotic phlebotomy with automated diagnostics to rapidly deliver patient information at the site of the blood draw. The system couples an image-guided venipuncture robot, designed to address the challenges of routine venous access, with a centrifuge-based blood analyzer to obtain quantitative measurements of hematology. In this paper, we first present the system design and architecture of the integrated device. We then perform a series ofin vitroexperiments to evaluate the cannulation accuracy of the system on blood vessel phantoms. Next, we assess the effects of vessel diameter, needle gauge, flow rate, and viscosity on the rate of sample collection. Finally, we demonstrate proof-of-concept of a white cell assay on the blood analyzer usingin vitrohuman samples spiked with fluorescently labeled microbeads.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Max L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Balter
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Alvin I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fromholtz
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gorshkov
authors.affiliation: Chief Executive Officer of VascuLogic, LLC, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Tim J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Maguire
authors.affiliation: Paul and Mary Monroe Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering at Rutgers University.
authors.forename: Martin L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Yarmush