Systems And Methods For Analyzing Body Fluids

An automated process comprising

• filling an applicator with a sample of body fluid containing one or more cells;
• positioning a tip of the applicator above a transparent substrate;
• dispensing a known volume of the body fluid sample out of the applicator and while ejection of the body fluid onto the transparent substrate is occurring, maintaining relative movement between the applicator tip and the transparent substrate to lay down the entire known volume of body fluid in two or more rows over a defined area of the transparent substrate, wherein a height of the applicator tip above the transparent substrate, a flow rate of the body fluid out of the applicator tip, and a speed of the relative movement are controlled such that cells in the body fluid settle onto the transparent substrate in a monolayer that is about one cell thick and such that morphology of the cells is sufficiently preserved to enable image-based cell analysis;
• illuminating the cells on the transparent substrate with a light source;
• capturing at least one image of the illuminated cells;
• storing the one or more images in a memory;
• and
• automatically analyzing at least one image of the cells in the memory to determine whether the body fluid sample dispensed onto the substrate is sufficiently dilute or concentrated in a quantity of cells to form the monolayer of cells for analysis, wherein if the analysis indicates that the body fluid sample on the substrate is too concentrated, automatically reducing the concentration of cells by adding diluent to the sample to further dilute the body fluid, and if the analysis indicates that the body fluid sample on the substrate is too dilute, automatically increasing the concentration of cells in the body fluid sample.