The leaders in urinalysis have always been ahead of their time.

In 1492, Columbus discovered America. The following year -- 1493 -- marked the birth of Theophrastus Bombastus of Switzerland -- better known as Paracelsus. As colorful as Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, Paracelsus was a medical doctor who invented chemical urinalysis and an alchemist who discovered the stuff of real chemistry -- hydrogen and nitrogen. Well ahead of his time, Paracelsus has long provoked historians, forcing them to ask: was he a denizen of the dark ages or a master of modernity? The answer that has slowly emerged sets this Renaissance man apart, for historians now say Paracelsus may have been the first true scientist of the modern age.

Thinking ahead -- to greater value, increased simplicity, and 21st century precision --
is a hallmark of another leader in the field of chemical urinalysis, a leader for today's practitioner -- Chatsworth, California-based International Remote Imaging Systems, otherwise known as IRIS Diagnostics.

With the Aution Max™ AX-4280 Automated Urine Chemistry Analyzer, IRIS Diagnostics lives up to its visionary name. Featuring a small footprint for today's space- challenged laboratory, the AX-4280 combines an alternative modular design that maximizes workflow efficiency -- at a cost that doesn't max out a laboratory budget.

Twelve tests: Standard or STAT

To the practitioners of his day, Paracelsus wrote, "The patients are your textbook, the sickbed is your study." With the Aution Max™ AX-4280, today's practitioners can add an important new standard to textbook diagnostic care.

The AX-4280 Analyzer performs 12 tests -- nine chemistry parameters, Specific Gravity by refractometer, color, clarity, and STATs at any time. Automatic, unattended sample processing features a unique high-volume rack transfer system that comes together with ease. Set up sampler, analyzer, display and printer for switch-on operation in only a minute, then add test strips, load samples and press Start.

Unique -- and uniquely qualified

Competing units shrink from the AX-4280 Analyzer's many unique features:

· Automatic abnormal color detection
· Specific Gravity from 1.000 to 1.050 in units of 0.001
· Color compensation pad that functions as a color blank
· Reduced interference -- Dual Wavelength reflectance also functions as a blank
· Four-wavelengths that automatically detect 23 colors and tones
· Lot-specific calibration? Not necessary with weekly check strips.
· Automatic temperature correction that increases precision and accuracy

"The Aution Max is easy to use and needs minimal maintenance," laboratory medicine expert Zahur Zaman, MD, Ph.D. wrote in a recent journal article evaluating the AX-4280 in three hospital laboratories. "No drift over 24 hours, malfunction, breakdown or sample carry-over was observed." (1)

TNT -- Dynamite Throughput and Turnaround

"The Aution Max AX-4280 is a high-throughput analyzer," Dr. Zaman and his collaborators added.

To the AX-4280, "high-throughput" means 225 samples/hour, 60 samples at a time -- expandable to 210. The automatic strip feeder holds up to 200 test strips, with a menu of 12 simultaneous tests. Uni- and bi-directional interfaces enable LIS connectivity while
automatic flags mark samples for confirmatory testing, sediment analysis or culture.
With unparalleled durability and reliability, the AX-4280's productivity-enhancing features add up to a dynamite incentive for any laboratory analyst -- cost-efficiency, laboratory style.

Five hundred years of promise -- and progress

Paracelsus invented modern urinalysis to ease the work of physicians, but didn't always do things the easy way himself. He ridiculed members of his own medical establishment who placed more importance on titles than practice, declaring in occasional outbursts that only by actively practicing an art could one ever really know it. Always the maverick, Paracelsus flung the outdated writings of the ancient Greek physician Galen into a bonfire and replaced them with his own -- the first modern treatise on antiseptic care. Moreover, while we can credit Paracelsus with creating words that simplified complex science -- 'chemistry,' 'gas,' and 'alcohol' among others -- medical historian Alfred Edward Waite wrote, "history tells us that Paracelsus was a difficult man." (2)

Today, diagnosticians can ease their work with an ingenious analyzer Paracelsus never had, to perform with simplicity and ease the techniques he created nearly five hundred years ago.

The Aution Max™ AX-4280 Automated Urine Chemistry Analyzer.

Because unlike the man who invented it, urinalysis shouldn't be difficult.

References:

(1) Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, 39(7): 649-657, 2001.
(2) Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus, 1894.